evaluation question 4

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

1.       With the world moving towards Web 2.0 I had to get used to using different technologies in order to create my media productions. Although the school did have the technologies I needed to create my productions, I did encounter problems, these included not being able to upload certain images onto the my blog or view videos for my research due to the restrictions on the school software, which meant I had to carry out some work from home. However I was unable to do all my work from home down to the fact I didn’t have some of the software I needed to complete the tasks, for example photoshop and iMovie, which meant that our editing was restricted to just my time in school, although this didn’t cause to much of an issue as we planned relatively well and allowed time for our work to be edited. One problem I did encounter at home and at school was the inability to place a powerpoint presentation on Blogger. This became an issue as I intended to carry out my evaluation as a powerpoint with pieces of video and audio to help present what I was trying to show. This caused me many difficulties and as a result I have typed up my evaluation. Blogger was fairly easy to get used to as I had used it last year and it is a case of just inputting the information you are looking to share. However a more problematic programme was Photoshop. I found this hard to get used to and spent a lot longer that what I had planned on trying to create my digipack, this also became increasingly frustrating as I wanted to make it look better than how it came out but this was down to the fact I really struggled to work out how to use the software and to get it to do what I wanted. Another piece of technology I had to get used to with the group was Prezi. This is an online presentation website in which you can create a free account and create a presentation, we used this to create our presentation on similar artists to our target artist. This was fairly simple to use once we had got used to it, as we had to follow paths. One piece of technology that Alex and Brad had to get used to more so than me was the lights in the recording studio. This was because I was in the video was focusing on what to do in the shots. However we did have to consider the lighting on each shot, something that sounds fairly simple but once you are filming and trying to make the lighting just right it can be a bit tricky to sort out. Another piece of technology I had to get used to was Wix.com this is a website that enable people to create their own website. This was difficult to understand at first because I hadn’t really created anything similar to this before so it took be a bit of time to get used to all the different ways in which you would edit the page. Once I had got an understanding on what to do it made it much easier to navigate the site and create my website. Overall I feel the use of technologies has been vital in the construction of my products and without these technologies I feel I would of found it a lot harder to create these productions. 

here is my final website i have used the images we took whilst we where out filming and put them on the website i have also used links from other websites and inputted audio files and videos so that people viewing the website would be able to go through and find out everything they wish to know about the artist. You can see i have used colours that are similar to the artist as Ed Sheeran uses orange and black on his album i thought this would be a good idea to use and his audience would be able to associate with this.

i feel the website is laid out fairly simply and would be easy for most people to work around and find what they are looking for with ease and without to much complication. i would however of liked to have had some more images available so that could of made the website more interesting and would of given the audience something more to look at. however i have tried to use all the images i had available to me and laid them out in a way similar to artists websites currently out in the market.

this is the link to my website:

http://daz495.wix.com/ed-sheeran

evaluation question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

1.       To get an idea on what our audience wanted from our media product we decided to carry out a questionnaire in which we asked questions that we thought would give us a better idea on what to put in our production to appeal to our audience. After creating the questionnaire we went out to get a response from our target market. Unfortunately the first group of people we asked were not very responsible and gave us unhelpful answers. This caused us to have a rethink, we went back looked at the questionnaire and change a couple of bits and then reprinted them and went out to try again. This time we were much more selective about who we asked for our target market as to make sure we didn’t get stupid answers again and waste more time. Another way in which I got audience feedback was by asking them to view our video and comment on the video. One thing that kept coming up was the fact the quality of our video was poor on YouTube. This was a shame because we had put time and effort into making sure the video was how we wanted it and then it was all ruined to a degree due to the fact our video was poor quality on YouTube. This was down to no fault of our own because when uploading the video we made sure we selected the highest quality so we assume this was down to the fact the something must have happened during the uploading process. I would like to have figured out what caused this and made sure I changed this as it spoilt the video to some extent. I also asked people to give me feedback on my work during the construction process.  I constantly asked people for feedback on aspects of my work that I wasn’t happy with, again the response was mixed. Some people were very helpful whereas other people just gave me ideas that were totally different to what I was trying to create. Although it did show me that people didn’t always want exactly what the stereotypes would suggest, which showed me that I should carry out more research next time in order to meet more of my target markets interests. Not all the feedback I received was bad thou, people did comment on how good some of the photography was and how the editing on the video made it run really well. I would like to take credit for this however Brad did put in more time than any of us into the editing of the video so I made sure he took the credit for it. 

i have completed my final digipack but for some unknown reason i am unable to put it on blogger as photoshop is not reconising it as an image however i do have each individual image that i can upload it will not let me put them together,

as you can see i have used images that we took whilst we were out filming. i am not particularily happy with my inside cover and my front because the images are too similar. looking back i wish i had taken some more images that would of been able to be used on my cover.

here is our final video complete!! after all of us putting effort in to the filming, editing and planning.
when the video was uploaded onto YouTube the video's quality got turned down so it looks like the video is poor quality but this is due to no fault of our own and we are unable to change this, below is the link to our video, ENJOY:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNXmE5LMSbA&list=UUzCuzU6TJVKZ_Khku1FndtQ&index=7

evaluation question 1

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

1.       In our video media production Grade 8 we have used, developed and challenged forms and conventions of real media productions. One of the ways we have done this is by using the artist himself, this is something you see on a regular basis in current music videos today. If you were going to compare this to a media theory you could relate this to Sven Carlson and his idea of a performance clip, where we show our artist in a number of locations for example the waterfall and the recording studio. We wanted to look at what Ed Sheeran had done in his previous videos, this helped us as we noticed that in most of his videos he had a story line to go with the lyrics. In our case we used a Romeo and Juliet story which is based on the theory by Kate Domaille in where you have to characters that seems to be in love with each other. This was good as you do not always see this in music videos made by Ed Sheeran this is why I would regard this as a form of developing current forms and conventions. We also needed other people in our video to help portray the effect that we wanted, this is where Lauren came in (the girl in our video) she helped us to create a storyline in the video. During the process of us developing our video Ed Sheeran realised his new video ‘Give Me Love’ in which there is a storyline as well as another character which is similar to our video. This shows we have used forms and conventions of real media products. Another way in which we used forms and conventions was by looking at Ed Sheeran’s videos and seeing that he is known for his use of a guitar, so we decided to include one in our video to so that we had considered current media products to inspire us. It also allowed us to keep continuity as many videos within the music industry use instruments that are played by the artist to the music. We also used the drum at the beginning of the music video that was played in time with the music to give an effect. One way in which we challenged media conventions was that in our video we had our artist walking down a street singing to the music, which is normally associated with rap music and not our genre of music. Another way in which challenged currents productions was that in our chorus our artist was just in the same place playing the guitar shown from different angles, this is unusual as normally the chorus is the piece of the music video where the most production occurs, whereas we had our artist in a simple environment without  doing to much, this challenges current media productions. 

evaluation question 2

How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary tasks?

1.       As my media products are not real media products I have created them based on research and tried to make them as real as possible. I have done this by trying to keep continuity by basing it all around the video. I have used the images that I took when out on filming for the video and used these for my digipack and website. Throughout my website I have decided to use the orange theme that Ed Sheeran is famous for because it shows I have taken into consideration what the artist is already famous for. Originally on my front cover of my digipack I did want to use an image of the guitar and using photoshop turn this into the number 8 as I have called my album Grade 8. Unfortunately I was unable to do this as when I took the images I didn’t really take into consideration the angle at which I would need to take the photo and it made it difficult for me to work this image so I decided to get rid of this idea as it was causing me to much hassle. On my digipack I decided that I didn’t want to move to far away from what the artist is already known for. Therefore I tried to use ordinary colours without being too bright. However looking back I feel that this was a mistake because unless people are specifically looking for the album it would not stand out on a stand so I would probably use more vibrant colours had I the chance to do this again. I made sure I included that video and an image of the digipack to again show continuity. I believe that the combination of my 3 tasks went well together although looking back at it I would change a few to make sure that my products stood out more and where more appealing to my target market. 

i have managed to finsih my front cover without having to much trouble, i decided to keep it fairly simple because it means that it wont be to much for people to look at and they are able to just concentrate on the music that is on the album.

I have used the two characters that were in the video to show soem sort of consistancy, it also give some sort of idea to what the ablum is going to be about, it shows it will be able a relationship and love.
i do feel that the writing on the front cover isnt as noticable as it should be, so i would probably change it so that you can see it clearly.

i did orginally want to use the guitar image cut out and try and turn this into the number 8 but this was becoming to much work as it wasnt sitting right and i couldnt seem to make it look like the number so it would of made the front cover look out of place.

this was the image i was trying to work but the way it was shot didnt make it easy for me to edit it how i wanted.

 

 

this is my inside cover, this would be on the back of the booklet that would come out of the album so people would be able to read about the artist and what the album is about. i wanted to use these images because it allowed me to capture the fact that it was all about the couple and how they where together. i realised after that i didnt have as many images as i thought so i wasnt able to give the full effect. i did try to use the image of the studio as the background but again it was proving to hard to work all the images around so i decided against this as i was running out of time and didnt want to spend to much time trying to figure how it would work out

Here is an image of my back cover, you can see that i have used a couple of the images from our filming. I decided to keep it fairly basic as i looked at Ed Sheerans previous album and found that he had kept it fairly simple and hadnt put a lot of information on the back. As this album has been sucessful I decided to keep my cover similar to this as I was hoping for mine to be sucessful.

Below is an image of Ed Sheerans album cover.

today we went out to try and film a shot where i was meant to fall down using an point of view shot and also smash a bottle. however we had number of problems one of which was the weather. it had heavily rained the night before meaning the ground was soaking wet, and as i was meant to be landing on the floor i decided i didnt want to be falling on the soaking wet floor. as a result of this we looked around for another location we could film the shot and found an underpass where the floor was dry and i was able to land without getting wet.

when we was out looking for the scene we found an good location for us to film the shot where i would have to catch the bottle and toss it away again without taking my eyes of the camera. this took a number of takes because we had to co-ordinate a number of things, when the bottle was thrown, when i caught it and when i threw it away again. i also had to make sure i didnt take my eyes off the camera and kept the lip singing going all at the same time.

it took several attempts some of which were ruined by me not catching the bottle and others because alex had to walk alongside me and throw the bottle but where we were meant that on occasions he appearded in the shot which is not what we wanted. finally after several attempts we managed to get it right without getting to wet which was also a bonus!

Today we started our digipack, this is one of our ancillary tasks. We had to create a front, back inside and CD holder. Our teacher said that it would be easier to use a template as it has been used in previous years and has been sucessful.

Here is the template we used to make the digipack it made it easier to put our images on as it gave us something to work towards. It also gave us measurements to use on photoshop which was much help as i was able to work within the parameters

After managing to create one page of my website i found it wasnt so hard so cracked on and made the second one, this was just a simple get in contact page where users would be able to email into the artist and ask him questions, they would also be able to ask any information about the artist and get their answer on the website. this would also create a forum where people would be able to talk about the latest news on the artist, below is my contact page:

as you can see i have included fields so people are able to get in contact with the artist and sign up for a newsletter where they would recieve free information on a weekly basis

i have managed to figure how to start using Wix and have designed one page on my website already, this was my events page, i listed 3 events where the artist would be performing and included images oh the events, i took inspiration from other artists websites because most of their websites have a page similar to this and i felt it is a good page to have as fans should be able to see when their favourite artist is going to be performing live for them to see.

i started to design my website today, i am going to be using Wix as it is a good website that allows users to create their own website using a template or by using a blank document. it also has a number of videos that enable you to follow step by step guides in order to create a website exactly how you wish it to look.

here is the front page to wix. you can see that you are able to use templates that have been produced already or you can get a blank template and create your website from scratch. along the top you can see where you are able to access videos that will help you to create your website in the way you want it.