Friday 4 March 2011

Olivia McKiernan- Evaluation

Q2
How Effective is the Combination of Your Main and ancillary tasks?




Q3


What have you learned from your audience feedback?




Q4


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


Throughout the whole project we used media technologies, from researching to uploading the final project. All of our documenting has been uploaded through posts on Blogger. By creating a page for our group we could all contribute to the blog as long as we had access to the internet. We found that it was good for documenting our work and displaying it but when it came down to adding images and videos, sometimes they didn’t load properly or ending up deleting work and meaning us having to start posts from scratch. Looking for music videos we used YouTube, and analysed the content, and came up with our own ideas. Some videos took longer than others to buffer but overall there weren’t many problems with the website. We used the internet search engines to research artists brand images, and books to find information on theories and inspiration, branding and audience. Researching theories and conventions we used the narrative and genre book and looked a chapter 4- The Theory of Genre1. We used Windows mail to get in contact with the X Factor contestant Diana Vickers who is also from Blackburn, as some of our friends knew her; this seemed a great opportunity to ask permission if we were able to use her song ‘My Hip’. We used latest technology video cameras to capture our video, 3 in fact, to get plenty of different angles of shots, this proved difficult when uploading as it took hours in total.
For the construction we moved onto the program ‘Final cut’, after a long process of learning how to use it and filming our video we were ready to edit it. It was a long process but we did it to a good standard. Out of our group, I struggled most with using this program as it was something I couldn’t grasp, I did all the lip syncing as it proved something I was good at. We got the hang of cutting the video up as our music was fast pace we had to make a variety of short cut shots for the video to flow with the music. Our group gained more confidence as the weeks went on and created a great final piece.
For our ancillary tasks I used Poppy’s SLR camera with a portrait lens, I was very happy with the results. We used butterfly lighting in the studio, as this is used in fashion photography very often to create a flawless look. Our use of Photoshop skills to edit the photos, as a group we are very proud of the outcome.
The technologies I used to create this evaluation were Scribd, and Prezi, blogger, search engines and blogger. Overall they have been easy enough to use, but Prezi took some time to figure out how to use. Scribd took a while for my work to upload and I have trouble locating the embed code. The way to upload photos onto Prezi was really simple and I am happy with the layout of the page as it makes this post visually appealing.
Its been a long process, and the blog has been very useful in documenting these past months and something we can come back and look at. The making of the video and ancillary task was really good fun and the overall outcome of using all the various technologies has been something I would do again. As a group we have all put in so much effort to create the Music video and ancillary’s and are very proud!

Charlotte Seal: Media Evaluation

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?


Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?


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

Tuesday 1 March 2011

Poppy-Bethany Cookson

For my media practical work I have decided to choose the 'Video Magazine' which consistes of creating a music video, magazine adverts and the panels of a CD cover.

I didnt do this one my own, I had to be in a group of 3/4. I decided to go with my friends, from my class, as they shared the same taste as myself. So my group consisted of myself, Liv, Molly and Charlotte.

I contributed to each other the tasks and projects, however couldn't get involved in the filming or photography to due to be 'music artist' and appeared in both the video and photographs.

The Following videos and Powerpoints will individually awnser the four key questions in turn...

Question Two: How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?

What is a brand?

-A brand is an idenity of a product or a business.
-A brand can appear to be in many different wants like a slogan, logo, name, sign , symbol or lettering to represent a certain brand.
- It is as though a brand is a personality of either a product or a business.
- Two highly popular ones are the Mcdonalds sign as it's also known as the 'golden arches' and world-wide and another recent and highly popular would the 'apple'!
-Brands mainly have legally been trademarked so it cannot be copied.

What is our brand image?

Our brand image is sexy, fiesty, glamerous and girlie.

The mise-en-scene and editing of our work expresses this alot. We used high key lighting to show a sharp edge and bring out the contrast of the clothing and background. Making everything into black and white also helped this. the editing techqniues used show a sophisicated look gaining our aim to achieve our brand image.


The picture above evidently shows a sense of sexy, fiesty, girliness and glamour. This brand image is not only produced by poses but by the colours used. We decided to use a girlie colour against the contrast of the black and white, also using stripes of pink across the page to fit in with the black and white stripey dress. Blending two sexy images together gain a more attractive and sophisicated look, making it look more glamerous to the eye. I think the overall brand image has been achieved and it works sucsessfully in this image.

Sense of Brand Idenity in Music Video..

Our brand identity is still evident though our music video however in a different manner.
We wasn't too bothered on the outfit colours, or style of clothing as we did want it to be unique and quirky however overall everything blended together and fitted in perfectly. We used green screening and a plain black brick wall to get two different effects, to give it more character and bring in different contrasts.

As I appeared in both the photographs and video, I had great pressure to achieve the sexy and sophisicated appearence, so had to have the confidence to express this. I did my best and I think this is shown though our video.

(this image is taken from the video shoot and had been cropped)


Sense of Brand Idenity in Ancillary Tasks..



throughout the ancillary tasks we are able to continue our brand image, yet enhancing it as we went along.
we pushed the sexy image to the maxium by myself posing topless to create this. I think it has worked extremly well and doesnt appear 'slaggy' but tasteful.
mainly all the images are in black and white, with a tint of pink stripes or song lyrics. This all makes our anicillary tasks look more attractive, yet interesting, like the artist.

Simularitys and Differences..

Our main simularitys and differences which are bold in our anicillary tasks and video are..

Simulaties being..
-Posing and positionings appeared the same and included the brand idenitys in both
-My hair and make-up was consistant thoughtout all of the projects, there was no drastic changes gaining more attention
-Clothing styles all fitted in
- Using the same backgrounds to create a sharp and bolder look

Differences..
- In our anicillary tasks we based it all on black and white images with pink stripes across the images. This wasnt consistant through our video however we should have maybe included pink clothing, backdrops or even insert a pink tint to the images.
-not being able to include a gun onto our images kind of erased our james bond theme from the images. if we was able to include the gun, it would have come across better and more sharp.



Question Three: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

As a group we decided our inital target audience was:
-female
-aged between 15-25
-white british
-middle/working class

We did a questionnaire for our target audience to decide on our inital ideas and planning.
POP - 33%
RnB - 29%
Indie - 27%
Theses were our most popular music genres and theses appeared to be listened to more via music videos on music channels.

Rock - 4%
Electronic - 2%
Rap - 2%
Bass - 1%
Contry - 0%
Other - 0%
Theses were extremly low numbers compared too our main three.

The most popular music channles appeared to consite of: 4music, MTV music and The Box.
Our research also indicated different varietys of listening to the music like Radios, Music Channles and Ipods. But it also showed that mainly girls listened to it in various places like in the car, bus and with there friends.

How we set out to appeal to our target audience..

After researching into what appeals our target audience we planned to use the following in our products:
 - Sexy, Fiesty and Glameorus outfits
- Use an artist who appeared all three of our brand image, had the confidence of an artist and somebody we could relate to a real music artist.
- simple make-up and hair, so she wasn't too over powering and appeared the 'girl next door'
- using simple locations and backgrounds to enhance on the artist more

did we succedd?..
- pink, girlie yet bold and sharp colourings ehanced our brand image better than expected, especially in the photographs
- using the sexy, fiesty and glamerous outfits fitted in extremly well and even in the photographs of going topless, brought the more sexy and fiesty side to the brand image out.
- keeping the locations simple wored and kept all the attention on the lip syncing, artist and the outfits as this is what we wanted our target audience to be more aware of

Audience Testing before completion:

We asked our target audience what they wished to view in a music video and there overall expectations. There opinions were the ones in which we had already thought about ourselfs yet we kept including different techqniues thoughout our work to make it better.

Final Audience Feedback:

our overall feedback consisted of:
- our music video appeared professional and looked good
- 'it reflects the genre very well'
- Green screening wasnt of a high standard but 'the bits what were done well, looked very good'
- the main character looked confident and fitted to the genre of the music and the overall music video
- lip synching was done to a good standard
- The words used to sum up our brand image were:
         - girlie
         - sexy
         - revealing
         - independent
         - seductive
this made me and my group happy as we clearly achieved what our target audience was looking for and what our brand image was.
- people found our countdown at the beginning good however wasnt sure on the purpose
- our editing techqniues were varied and the layering techniques were effective
- choose of clothing, hair and make-up fitted well with our brand image.

Feedback on our Ancillarie Tasks:

- The photographs looked professional with good editing and content
- Album panels achieved our genre of music. they were girlie and sophisicated however were abit cheesy
- Our arist was really confident and the photographs were excellent
- the pink stripes we used and included worked well, achieving an attractive look
- from our ancillary tasks we asked what they thought the brand image was and we found that they were: sexy, girlie, confident and cheeky. This is spot on to what we aimed for.
- editing techiques looked good and they were also followed through the music video also

We did however get a few surgesstions which were
- clearer writing on some of our advertisments
- bright colours to be a little more eye catching






Sunday 13 February 2011

Molly Evaluation

Question 2:Question 2 Media Evaluation molly derbyshire
Question 3:molly derbyshire media evaluation 2
Question 4:
How did you use Media Technologies in the Construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

We used media technologies throughout the whole process of research, planning, construction and evaluation stages. Using media technologies is essential today and we would find without them we wouldn’t get very far. To create a music video we needed to  research into audience, genre and unique selling points to begin with, using genre and narrative theories we had to look through books and looking the Internet to learn about them. Looking into music videos we looked on YouTube to Analise further the genre of which we were looking at and the content of the video. Looking into branding and successful brand identity the Internet and books again came in handy. Into the planning process we had to learn the in’s and out’s of final cut, how to green screen and how the lighting that was available to us worked. Furthering into the construction we needed to use technologies such as final cut to the best of our ability and learn how to do the things we needed to do on In Design and Photo shop.



The research process saw us using blogger, we used blogger to document all our findings and ideas onto separate posts, as a group blogger worked really well as we were all able to do our ow individual research and then collaborate and contribute to the ideas and research posted on the blog. We all found blogger easy to use and enjoy contributing to others ideas however the only problem we found was that it could be a bit temperamental at times and take a while to upload videos or photographs but all in all it is a really good way to work as a group.

To analyse and research certain genres we looked on YouTube and watched various music video to give us ideas and to research what was needed to fulfill the genre. We found YouTube easy to use and didn’t have any problems with it.

Researching theories and conventions we used the narrative and genre book and looked a chapter 4- The Theory of Genre1. We found this chapter particularly useful as we were able to research generic conventions, narrative and theme, genre and society to help us find out about how the genre is used and the certain things you would associate with the genre and what you would expect to see. As we were all creating individual blog posts on different topic only a couple of us used this information, however it was very informative and helpful towards our research stage.

Looking at the charts for album sales was going to help us identify what genre was most popular, we used the Internet to find this information out and used the new.music.yahoo.com to to find the statistics, we found this website easy to use and clear to understand.



Onto the planning process we used email to ask for permission to use Diana Vickers’ song, we used the recording camera to crate animatics of our story board. We also used a stills camera to take location shoots. As we were all experienced with using these technologies we found this part straight forward. Once we had done the animatics of the storyboard we then had to edit them roughly on final cut, as none of our group had used final cut before we decide to each do a tutorial on the programme to then be able to know the basics and work from there, with the tutorial I think all of our group found final cut slightly easier to understand however, the problem that occurred was the length of time it was taking us but we knew we were going to have to know everything for when we came to edit our video so we too our time and eventually got the hang of it.

Also, within the planing we needed to know what to do with the lighting in the studio and how to use them correctly  and how to green screen properly. We had a demonstration on the lights and what every light was for and how to use them I the correct way, we found that lighting was going to be a big part of our video and therefore we needed to know ow to use them properly. After our demonstration we had a practice with the lights and found them fairly simple however we just needed to remember what each light was for. To do the green screen training we needed to loo at a tutorial as none of us had ever done it before, but, after the training we found that the green screening was a hit and worked well therefore we were going to use it in our music video.

In the construction on our video we used the lighting, green screening, video cameras and final cut to edit. As we knew how to use this basically throughout the filming process our groups usage of the equipment grew and we became more familiar with the technologies. When we got to the editing of our music video stage we then had to go into more depth with final cut, we learnt how to cut each clip down, how to fade into a different clip, how to merge and over lap two images, how to green screen onto different backgrounds and how to use photo shop to produce our countdown. Although the editing was a long process and we all took it in turns I think that we each learnt something new within final cut and we were each able to apply these techniques to our video to create various effective techniques. The only problems we had within Final Cut were how to create ad new technique as we were to confident with experiment and getting everything wrong we were able to ask the technician how to do various things and  learn from those demonstrations.
When creating our ancillary tasks we used Photo shop to create each of our advertisements and album panels, we used similar techniques as to what we had used in our video such as the layering two images on to of each other, we also used the fade tool to make the pink on our album cover less vibrant and so that the artist could be seen. As all of our group were familiar with the tools on photo shop we didn’t really encounter any problems and overall I think the ancillaries benefited from our knowledge of photo shop.

Finally for our evaluation we were to use PowerPoint and scribd or slide share to them upload I onto the blog, PowerPoint was straight forward as we had all used it before however to upload it onto the blog we had to use the tutorial on how to used either scribd or slide share however, tutorial was easy to follow and we were able to upload our PowerPoint's onto the blog in no time.

Overall as a group I think our knowledge of different programmes was a plus when we all came together to do one thing, the tutorials were an excellent help and the training we did before hand proved to pay off. As an individual I feel I have become more technically minded and I can do a lot more things than before I started the whole construction process, I have found final cut excellent to work with and I have really enjoyed the process of create each of our final projects with the Media technologies help.







Friday 21 January 2011

Progress

This week we have created questionnaires for both our ancillary tasks and music video. We want our products to appeal to a young adult audience therefore our class members would be a perfect audience. We have also started our Evaluation, self evaluation is hard, having to be critical of our own work, but we have looked at other music videos and compared them to get a feel of the codes and conventions of typical music videos. As a group we have recorded a directors commentary to be played over our video including stills from our video and other music videos to show comparison.

Liv x

Final Ancillary Tasks - Album covers and 2x Album Magazine adverts











Audience feedback- class analysis