Question 4 evaluation

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

Within my media product I have used a range of media technologies ranging from different camera lenses, final cut pro, adobe Photoshop and as well various search engines.
When we decided what we wanted to base our product on we had help from the well known search engine Google. When using this I was able to research different songs too choose from also have a look at other music videos to get inspiration from. Not only that we was also able to access social networking sites to gain information based on clothing and a range of artists and how they present their selves.

I was able to use Google again to plan our route around London, I done this by finding different ’nature’ locations and planning out or day within London. I done research into things we could do around London to make our day more productive as London is fairly far as we only had one day to get everything right.
Of course we had Blogger that was the main essential to planning and documenting our product. This was used to write journal posts and our stages of creating our video which I have used to its great potential.


Throughout this process we have had the opportunity to use different camera lenses such as the 50mm lens that helped us create great footage where we was able to focus on the main artist and have her in focus rather than the whole scenery in the back ground. Also the tripod has helped us within our process as when we have been shooting all three of us we have needed the tripod to stand in and hold the camera, this also helped us get some great angles to make the video look a lot more professional. Our mobile phones have come in very handing within this as throughout our video we have a couple of montages of photos which have been captured from past parties and moments we have all shared together, this then gave the video a more natural and fun vibe.

After all the footage was shot we he had to convert all our files into MPEG stream clip where we could change the format of our clips so that we could use Final Cut Pro to begin editing our footage. Through this process my group and I have all taken it in turns to complete the editing but have all worked as a group to create this video to the best of our ability. Using final cut pro has helped us to change lighting, edit clips in different places, as well as challenging us to use the tabs within that we have never learnt before as a lot of our footage had been taken over a few weeks the lighting had come out different and we had a lot of blue shots which after being taught how to use the program we have sorted out which has made a big difference to our video. We have also needed to speed shots up and slow some down which has pushed us to the edge when trying to match up the lip syncing, but with patience we have accomplished this.
For our fonts within our main product and my ancillary texts I have used a online program called ‘DaFont’ which gave me thousands of fonts that I could choose from to match my genre for these products. I have had a range of fonts to work with and up until now my audience feedback has helped me decide which one I was to use.
I used Adobe Photoshop for my digipak and poster so that I could create my own form a blank canvas. For my digipak I used a range of effects and also changed the contrast and lighting to suit my needs. I have edited photos and changed backgrounds so that my digipak was unique and was not like my other group members. I used DaFont again so that I could download the font I wanted to use and then I could open that in Photoshop. For my poster I used a ‘Lasso tool’ to create the outer white glow around my photo. I made sure I created a rough edging so that it stood out more to the audience and the outsiders perspective.
I have used social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook for feedback on the main product and there fore this has helped me make progress within my evaluation. I have used the chrome key in Final Cut Pro to help me with my green screen which proved very difficult, so then I found a new way to get rid of the green screen background which was the green/blue tab within this program which I could use for one of my evaluation questions.




　

Question 3 evaluation

Media eval upload from Megan Mead

 

 

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 

From my audience feedback throughout I feel it has helped a lot with how our music video has progressed. Most of the feedback from the audience we was aiming for was from our classmates as they are around the age we have targeted, due to them all being media students themselves I thought they gave a detailed response and have given us ideas on how to make the video better but they was also critical which also helped us when deciding what was to be changed. From previous feedback we have found out the colour of the actual video reinforced the genre being Indie, for example the autumn colouring. The target audience from recent surveys also agreed that the song we chose, the group’s name and who we were aiming this for worked well and it suited. From this the next survey conducted was based on whether all of this was that of an indie genre, 33.35% agreed that it was, however 80% thought that it was an indie rock band, from this we then decided to change and make the band full indie by changing our photos to being more outside and also the font within our digipaks and posters to that of an indie vibe. One of the questions we asked was “the group is made up of three girls, what is your opinion of this?” the response we got back was brilliant, we had things such as its good to be different as nowadays we do not see much of this as its more about solo artists. The next question was regarding the song name and what people thought of it, we had responses such as girls playing guitars which was one of Goodwin’s conventions ‘ links between music and visuals’. 

We have had feedback on our video on face book which was the perfect place to put it as the people that would be seeing the video are the same age as the target audience and the comments have been really good. We were aiming for fun vibes which according to comments have been achieved. The one comment we have had throughout is regarding the ending ‘love the ending, love the fade and how it comes to an end, really works well with the finishing of the song’ which is brilliant as it brings the video to a smooth ending. The ‘selfies’ taken was also a big factor in the video as it relates back to the home made feel to the video and the audience picked up on this every time the video had been shown, they agreed with us and said it made the video more relaxed and fun showing what the group was really like.

I have also shown my friends and families when they have been round and the comments I have had back have been positive, although the comment from my mum was ‘there is a lot of Hayley’, this goes to show that the target audience of teenagers and young adults was the best one as my mum did not understand the concept of having one main singer and then back-up singers.

At the beginning of the product we had an idea of going into a field for ‘party’ which from feedback ended up with us not continuing with that idea as the feedback we got made a good point of we was trying to be natural however going out and drinking was not something natural, we all agreed with this and from hearing this we made a lot of changes and location shots.

Our band image relates to our audience as the website ‘Tumblr’ is a social networking site that often teenagers that are around our target age would be using, and nowadays a lot more teenagers are getting into fashion and following their friends styles as well as trying new ones. The name of our band ‘After Midnight’ is about living to the full potential and it indicates how young people like to stay up late and are often full of energy. The arcade scene is the scene that we really wanted to work, this is because arcades are places that teenagers often visit and you find that arcades are full of teenagers having a fun and they are very entertaining. There for we decided to use the arcade as a fun and homemade vibe, which therefore relates to the audience and what they are often doing.

Due to our audiences needs and the conventions we had to follow to meet these needs we have learnt how to use a variety of shots that will appeal to the outsiders perspectives.


 

This is the second part to the question.

Question 2 evaluation

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


I feel my Digipak, Poster and the overall product we have produced all work along side each other nicely. My poster and the music video are slightly different due to the colour of my background being quite a bright and a vibrant colour being pink which is different to the nature and natural feel of the actual music video, I done this to show how the group is still very girlie despite being from the Indie genre, however myself and my audience feel that it works nicely due to the difference between them. On my poster I have used the photo from my front page of the digipak so that the audience would know the poster matches with the digipak. Also in my poster the photo I have used has a white ridged cut out behind it giving the photo and edgy feel which also I think ties in with the genre of our product, I also thought it was quite different and I didn’t mean to make it like that at first because the font I have used is clean cut and straight, but I thought the contrast between them made it look good and make the photo stand out. The font I chose for my poster and digipak has been consistent throughout and has also been used on our video. My font has changed throughout the process so I could find the best one that suited, the one I have chose is my favourite as I feel it represents the true nature of what our band is about, although it is straight to the point and plain I feel that it works really well with the groups image. The photo I chose was of the group looking at something which I felt went well with the song name ’Suddenly I see’. This photo used was one of the natural photos that believe it or not was not one of the ’posed photos’ as we was looking out of the window at something I saw, because of this I thought it was a really good photo as I didn’t want the group to come across as serious all the time and to be as relaxed as possible.



On my Digipak the colour has been matched up to the lighting on the music video, I have used a green tone and made sure I included a lot of scenery. The photos I used I wanted them to come across natural but with a element of fun and photo shoot, I feel like I have created this within my digipak. I have used all photos of the group on my digipak for 5 of the boxes however on the CD I decided to use scenery to reinforce the nature and I didn’t want the digipak to look ‘full up’. To be different I used a selling point of being able to win a day of meet and greet with ‘After Midnight’, after doing

research it was evident that the target audience we was aiming for would be interested in meeting their ‘idol’. I have changed my front cover of the digipak a lot and this was because I didn’t feel the others matched what I wanted the band to represent and I feel I have made a clear view that the group is that of an Indie genre.
I feel that my poster and digipak are both recognisable and unique and the audience will appeal to this. I wanted to create an image that could be looked up to, this backs up my idol point as most artists have fan bases that will admire to be like their desired person.
I have had a numerous amount of drafts when regarding my digpak and posters due to wanting to create the best image I could. To start off with my digipak had photos from the same location and were all very staged which the feedback from my class agreed with. We was also told that there we didn’t look like a group as we wasn’t cohesive within the photos. Therefore we arranged another shooting for the photos and we made sure that the images looked like proper girl group members and tried to be more relaxed.
On my poster I have used twitter links and face book links as these social networking sites are very popular in today’s society for the youth and therefore reinforces the idea that my artist has been aimed at teenagers.

Question 1 evaluation

This is my first question evaluation. I have included our music video in the background and have changed the speed to match me talking so the video was the same length.

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

 

 From the start of being told what our project was my group and I decided we wanted to do an Indie/Folk girl group. We liked the idea of the image we could create. The genre Indie/folk is recognised today by a lot of the youth, we decided on making the audience female as we were an all-girl group. We had problems deciding on songs as a lot of Indie/Folk bands back in the day are groups of men where as more newer groups are female which in our brief they did not want us to choose the newer music as the videos are too easy to be influenced by, so to challenge this stereotype and form we took the genre and made a girl group from it but with an older song, ‘Suddenly I see’. Our video has included the main conventions of the genre as we have used close up, high angles, low angles where needed to develop the conventions of a real media product and also the costumes we have chosen to wear suited the genre of Indie, we chose things such as dresses, denim, cardigans, tights and boots. We done a lot of research into the clothes we thought would be best to wear and also the social networking site ‘Tumblr’ includes various ‘Indie’ and unique clothing, this is where we got our clothing inspiration from. Also from looking at the latest music videos from the same genre we have also had inspiration from those artists, especially Haim.
 
We done a lot of research into different artists that we thought went under the category of an Indie/Folk groups or solo artists such as Lana Del Rey, Kings of Leon and Haim. Haim is where we got most of our inspiration from as they are three young girls who are representing the Indie genre, exactly like my group and we have tried to do in our video. Haim’s videos and posters tended to be outside a lot and they didn’t seem too forced which is what we wanted to portray within our project. After a lot of research into what an Indie group was like we settled with this. What we found was that a lot of groups under this genre revolved around nature and being care free along with natural and fun, the group Haim done exactly this. As a group we wanted to portray this message not only in our video but in our digipaks and posters too.
 
However although the term of the genre ‘Indie’ could be interpreted in different ways such as; partying and drinking, staying out late and going against societies norms and values, which was our first idea, we opted on going against this as we believed this would be showing a negative stereotype of young females, therefore going against the conventions of some Indie representations.
We decided our locations needed to be outside in the open, such as parks, fields, gardens so that we were surrounded by nature. We had a few issues such as weather to start off with as we chose the film in winter, however despite the cold all the footage came out with amazing lighting.
 
In our video we wanted it to look as relaxed as possible which became a problem at some point, however with various feedback from our teachers and class mates we overcome this by making the video look ‘home made’. This was done by using hand held cameras and not really going by our story boards, this then made the video more relaxed. In
the video there is a slight story line that could be applied to our video, the video starts off as us holding a map looking at places to go, we then have various shots of locations around London such as the London eye, arcades and other places, after this we then start making the video about the days out we have had, hence the costume change, towards the end of our video we come home and sit by the fire. By doing this we are showing the true nature and relaxation of the genre. 
 
Goodwin’s theory played a big part within our video as we wanted to include as many of his theories as possible to make sure we had included the real conventions of a music video. We used the theory of Visuals and lyrics a lot, for example in the video we have a map which goes alongside the first lyrics ‘ her face is the map of the world’. Throughout the video we had various shots of our main singer, we had close ups and lip syncing throughout which reinforces the girl group stereotype and also sticks to the conventions of real media products.
We also used notion of looking which was where me and the girls were walking in the leaves also at the very end the closing shot is of the sunset.
We have complied with the record label ‘Rough Trade’ by using close ups of the main artist as well as a range of different camera angles.
I feel that from researching into different artists with a similar genre to ours it has allowed us to apply these conventions to our music video and initially portray our band as fun and carefree and essentially indicate the genre.

Final of my poster!

Final of my digipak

Music video final