Todd W: Evaluation Question 2

Todd W: Evaluation Question 3

Todd W: Evaluation Question 4

Todd W: Evaluation Question 1

Media Evaluation Question 1 Final.jpg by toddwhitsey

Evaluation Question 4 - Jack M

Evaluation Question 3 - Jack M

Evaluation Question 2 - Jack M

Evaluation Question 1 - Jack M

Evaluation Question 1 by JackMuggy

Liam Cooke Evaluation Question 2

Media Evaluation Question 2 by Liam Cooke

This question is formatted as a letter written from the record label to the band congratulating them on how well they have created a brand within their 3 products.

Liam Cooke Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation question 4 by Liam Cooke

This is a magazine article, as Scribd seems to have jumbled up and missed some words I will include the transcript here.

"The idea of the big, hopefully iconic M, was simple enough to be produced in Microsoft Publisher. As a small independent band, with lack of funds, it is practical for us to be able to use these programs, because they are accessible and easy to use, meaning we can design whilst being on the road or whilst in breaks of recording, on our laptops. This allowed us to produce what is hopefully a memorable image in our digipak and advertising campaign, whilst still being able to do our job. Our video was filmed with a Fujifilm mini SLR, a portable camera. This was practical for our video because we wanted to create a lot of energy and really introduce the band and show what we are about, and therefore the lightness and size of the camera allowed for 100% handheld and moving shots, which really helped with the energy conveyed.  It was also a camera that fits in well with our budget whilst also proving relatively good in quality, whereas other high quality cameras such as the Cannon EOS 650D were out of our price range. My MacBook pro is another piece of technology that was used in the process of video and digipak production. As mentioned it was used to access publisher and therefore create our digipak but  before we could even think about making our designs we needed inspirations, so going on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Bandcamp allowed us to take inspiration from other bands designs, such as Enter Shikari, Don Broco and Hacktivist.  iTunes was also used, where I had the song in my iTunes library, I then imported it into Garage Band. This was necessary because as the song starts instantly, in order for us to be able to perform it live on the video, we needed a count in to know where to start, so I added that in on Garage Band. After importing the video onto my laptop via SD Card, I then imported into iMovie, along with the edited, count in version of Zzzonked. This program was very useful, it allowed us to mute the original video, and therefore sync the footage up correctly to the song. It also was easy to change the colour to black and white, which was  an important asset to our video. It was easy to crop out bits of footage and remove very small segments, such as 0.1 seconds from the project to perfect the lip syncing. In terms of feedback and promoting the video, youtube, was of course the place for us to upload the video,  an easy site where anyone can make an account and add videos, and iMovie has an option to upload directly to youtube so this was practical. It also allows for comments and a like/dislike bar which means we can learn from feedback and see what people think. This site also allows a link straight to the video, so you don’t  have to download the video to watch it and it is therefore accessible. This means we could paste the link directly onto our band, and also personal twitter/facebook profiles, which again also allows for comments and can be broadcast to a large amount of people, again helping with feedback and popularizing the video. Therefore this was a big part of how we understood what we had to do to turn our draft video, into an exceptional finalized video. A massive part of our music video was blogger. We have a blog where we have documented all of the research and planning involved, in order to convey the journey that we have taken and how our ideas and original videos have developed. It meant that when designing digipaks and filiming our video, we could look back on our ideas in case we needed to add anything or to improve.  We originally made an animoto presentation to pitch our ideas, which went down well. It allowed us to show the basic feel of our video along with a song which also adds to the feel to a group of people, and get feedback, this showed that we had met the correct target audience so we went through with our idea of purely performance in our video. Other pieces of technology use include a wire  adapator that allowed us to connect one half of the wire into my laptops headphone port, and the other end of the wire into the room where we filmed’s P.A. This projected the music incredibly loud so we could use a live drum kit and get into the music, enhancing our performance.  In order to book the room we had to google search for a telephone number, and ring them up on my blackberry phone, another piece of technology.  From this we can see that technology is essential in creating and broadcasting music video’s, as well as digipaks and promotional posters."

Liam Cooke Evaluation Question 3

This is a artists commentry of the video explaining what I learnt from audience feedback. THIS IS QUESTION 3 NOT 4 AS I STATE IN THE VIDEO.

Liam Cooke Evaluation Question 1

I decided for question 1 to produce a video blog or 'vlog' acting as the singer of the band, I was responding to comments criticising the bands products unoriginality.

Evaluation Question 4 DRAFT Jack M

Question 4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Technology I used in the production of the final pieces and the research, planning and evaluation pages:

4 Main Groups-

Edit and Create

Digital Camera - to film the video, this was a small camera so worked well when creating hand-held shots. It was also a high quality camera so we were able to film our video knowing that the footage will be good quality.

iPhone - For many things - Blogger App. - Allowed me to access the blog via my mobile phone which allowed me the make posts whilst away from a computer. It also allowed me to take photographs throughout this coursework task, most notably the photo of the fire used for my poster and digipak.

Photoshop CS6 - This software allowed me to create my digipak and poster. I found it relatively easy to use and enjoyed developing my skills in the program.


iMovie - This was used throughout the editing stage of the video, since doing the prelim task at the start of the year i have found this program pretty simple to use and enjoyed editing the footage.


Feedback

Twitter - The bands twitter account was used to speak out to the fan base and get feedback for our video. Twitter is one of the most vital technologies bands use today to reach out to the public and advertise their products.

Facebook - This allowed us to use our personal Facebook accounts to distribute our video to our friends on the social networking sites, this led us to gain some comments regarding our video and a numerous amount of 'likes' for our video.

Presentation

Slideshare - This program allows you to upload slideshow and publisher documents to the blog, this came in handy during the research planning and evaluation stages of the project.

Scridb - This program allows you to upload word documents to the blog, this came in handy during the research planning and evaluation stages of the project.

Blogger - Perhaps the most vital technology we used was Blogger. this internet broadcasting site has allowed us to store our pieces of work and show the examiner exactly how we got to our final product. Blogger has been very useful as it can support any file or request we wanted and allowed us to all store our work together as a group.

Animoto - Animoto came in handy during our pitch and my evaluation questions. We used it to create videos containing text, images and our choice of song.

Generally Useful

iPod - The iPod was useful in two ways, firstly when deciding on the song we wanted to choose for our video, and secondly when playing our song through the PA at the rehearsal room where we filmed our video.

eMail - eMail was useful when sharing ideas with the rest of my group, and when receiving feedback from my teachers, as it is a quick and easy method of communication i was able to talk to my teachers about my work easily and effectively.

Safari (blogger) - Access to the internet was vital. Safari allowed me to use search engines for my research and also gave me access to blogger.

Youtube - This was important especially throughout my research and planning, as i was able to use it to search for similar videos which gave me ideas. Another way it came in handy was finding turorials for iMovie for when the video was being edited, and for Photoshop CS6 when i was designing my poster and digipak.

Evaluation Question 3 DRAFT - Jack M

Question 3 What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I have recieved a lot of feedback from my audience, both from my selected target audience and from people outside my target audience. I got comments on the youtube upload of my video, written down feedback from my classmates and then word document assessments from my peers for my ancillary tasks.

Evaluation Question 2 DRAFT - Jack M

EVALUATION 2. How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

I think that the combination of my products are very effective throughout all three texts, as i think i have created a brand image for my created band that fits in with similar real life artists today. Using the same font (hunter squared, from dafont.com) throughout my Digipak and Poster has allowed me to create an effective image for the band, this is also backed up by the use of the same background image within both of my ancillary tasks. Also using the crystal logo has allowed me to create a noticable image that will be recognisable for a band with a large fanbase, this is a common technique that is seen in large rock bands today, for example Enter Shikari use an upside down triangle as their band logo. This sense of branding is used to represent the band and for the fan base of the band to recognise the certain images and logos used. For example the fans of a certain band will feel good wearing clothing with certain logo's on as it would allow them to feel part of the bands fan base which, especially young people, take a lot of pride in. I used the fire in the background of my poster and Digipak to convey a sense of outrage and anarchy, this fits in with he genre of music in the video. I chose to do this so I could combine the fire image and the way the band act in the music video, as they are jumping around and hitting the floor etc. so it fits in with this sense of destruction and anger, so i wanted this message to be conveyed throughout my 3 products. A good way in which i have combined my main product and ancillary texts is by using a 'space' related theme, as i use what look like alien text on my Digipak, this also relates to the band name 'Mothership', which then relates to the style of song we chose, as it has electronic influence and uses synthesisers to create a space-type feel. These all combine to create a good image of the bands style of music, as the audience will generate an alien and space idea of the band.  I chose not to include any shots of space or any spaceships (mothership) in my product as i thought this would be too cliche and I wanted to be more subtle with this style and image i was try to convey. I also thought this would make the band look quite childish and amateur as it is common for bands within the same genre to have a totally unrelated name to their style of music or their image they give off.
Using 'Havoc Records' as the record label for Mothership has given the band a sense of realism and professionalism. Taking influence from the current label 'Hassle Records' I created this label to give the band another aspect of branding, as the logo i created is featured on both the poster and digipak, i think this has worked well and helps my products to fit in with products that are already on the market. However, if i were to add anything to my final product i think that adding the Havoc Records logo at the end of the video would complete this sense of branding. Many bands do this, however it seems to be only the smaller bands that have their record label at the end of their videos as maybe they need more recognition and want to be advertised to the public more. As you can see there is a correlation between the black and white of the music video and of the panel in the Digipak, this also shows the way in which i have used a combination of syles in each of my products to create a sense of branding.

Evaluation Question 1 DRAFT - Jack M

EVALUATION 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product challenges and uses forms and conventions of real media products, especially within the final music video. As bands of a similar genre typically stick to a performance video, we chose to do the same, this is because it is an effective way of conveying energy and outrageous behaviour, which is something the rock genre is noted for. The way in which we used conventions of videos are most notably with the fast cuts and moving shots I used, I included zoom shots, track shots and pan shots within the video to create the energetic feel that my music video needed. Examples of this are found in the video for the song we chose 'Zzzonked' by Enter Shikari, as the video for that is solely performance and includes very fast cuts. Another way we used a real product to influence ours is through the use of the black and white colours, as again the video for Zzzonked is in black and white, however i have found that this is quite rare for a rock performance video as they are usually in colour, such as the video for 'Song 2' by Blur. The decision to make our video in black and white was to stop our video looking budget as I found it hard to create an effectiver frame using our clothes and the minimal lighting we had available. Another way my music video uses convenions of real music products is the mise en scene of the room we filmed in, as its size is very small it makes the video claustrophobic, also the walls are very plain. Examples of a small simple room are in the video for Paramore's 'Ignorance' and for Hawk Eyes 'Kiss This' video. These are both similar styled videos with similar genres. I think that the decision to film in this room was very good as it made our video look more realistic and impressive, especially as it significantly keeps in with the genre of our music. The inclusion of slight humour within the video actually challenges the conventions of real media products, as in nearly all rock performance videos the band looks quite serious and maybe try to convey a sense of anger within their music, especially within the heavier forms of rock. However we wanted to challenge this as we belive music isnt meant to be that serious and we thought it would be a good idea to speak out to our target audience using humour, this is why shots with funny faces are included. My Digipak and poster also fit in with the conventions of real media products, I took a real inspiration from the Album cover i analysed in my research and planning (Every Time I Die - Ex Lives). As this uses a bright pink 'I' that stands out from the hectic background, i really like this use of a logo as it represents the band effectively in a simple way. This is why I used the crystal idea, as i wanted to create a little logo or image that can represent the band, I used this in the centre of my poster and in the corner of my digipak. I think this worked well and am happy with the outcome. I also this crystal across the digipak and poster to really press this logo upon my target audience, as once a band uses a log it often sticks with them throughout their career, it also allows fans to represent their band i.e. through merchandise (t-shirts etc.)