Evaluation

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?  
Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts ?





Q3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

 

Q4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Task: Create a video presentation which discusses the technologies you used at each stage of the project. This video needs to be different from the Director’s commentary in terms of its presentation and content ie. Presented as a ‘How to use…’/ Teaching (in character?) style of video that could then be used as a future teaching aid. For homework for wednesday, you need to write the script for this and try to collect relevant screen grab images. Choose 3 technologies that you used and explain how you used them or you can 

SCRIPT Research:
Actor 1: I am going to answer the question; How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stage? 
Actor 2: But how are you going to answer the question? 
Actor 1: I am going to look back at four things: Research, Planning, Construction and the Evaluation.
Actor 2: Sounds great! Tell me about the Research process.
Actor 1: During lesson, i used the Apple Mac for research where as at home i used Windows 7. On the Mac i was able to use different softwares such as Safari. 
Actor 2: Safari? what did you use that for?
Actor 1: I used Safari for internet surfing. On the internet i used google search to do a lot of my research such as to search conventions of hip-hop and rap, as well as researching into the art of dance, urban style and the lyrics of our song choice I then uploaded any evidence of research onto a Google owned website; Blogger. Another google software i used for research was Youtube.
Actor 2: YouTube? What is that and why did you use it?
Actor 1: Youtube is a popular site people use to upload and watch different videos. It was significant to my research as i used it to listen to different songs and watch different music videos with the same Hip-hop/Rap genre as my product in order to understand various conventions and how artists develop and challenge them.
Actor 2: Ahhh, i understand how you researched now. But that still doesnt answer the question in the aspect of Planning.

Planning:
Actor 1: Again for our planning we used Blogger to show the stages. From the research on Andrew Goodwin's, as a group we were able to plan a structure for our music video in relation  to the key features. We were then able to plan a location, time and date for our filming. To make filming day easier and more organized we sketched out a storyboard of key shots and angles in correct order.
Actor 2: Did the research help your planning then?
Actor 1: Yes! The research was very helpful as it gave me an understanding of what shots/angles to include in the music video and the amount of them. Goodwin suggests that quick cuts is key in music video's to keep the viewer watching and there should be at least 7 different locations/shots. Before arriving at each location, we also had to plan what day is best to shoot depending on the weather and risk assessment.
Actor 2: From all this research and planning; how did you then construct the music video and ancillary products?

Construction:
Actor 1: The first step of construction was to film. While filming i learnt to use different equipment such as the sony camera, lighting for a brighter appearance and a tripod to keep the camera still and focused. With the camera we were able to get different shots/angles such as; birds eye, high angle, mid shot, long shot, hand held and close ups.
Actor 2: What did you do with the footage?
Actor 1: With the footage I began to edit using Final Cut on the Mac computer. I found this challenging but was able to learn quickly. Firstly, i listened to the music and marked key vocal points on the sound track and did the same to the video in order to make the lip syncing smooth and professional. After choosing which clips we needed and were we needed them, i placed them onto the timeline and began to create slit screens with some. This idea of split screens came from the music video called 'hey there delilah'. to make a split screen  firstly had to make a white solid background then scale and crop. To make some clips more interesting such as the last clip, i added the effect called earthquake which gave a shaky feel on the beat of the song. I found this by going into effects then video filters and then in distort. I also added a reverse speed to the same earthquake clips by going into modify clicking speed then clicking reverse.
Actor 2: Did you edit to change the lighting of clips even though you had planned to film in dark locations?
Actor 1: After the video was complete, i found that there was a significant difference in the lighting/brightness of the clips and so the solution was to colour correct. Colour correction allowed me to change the mid whites, saturation and brightness of certain clips. I found this by going into effects, then video filters and clicking colour correction.
Actor 2: Did you use Final Cut for your evaluation?
Actor 1: Yes i did. One new thing i learnt was how to minimize a clip placing it in the left hand corner while another clip is present. I did this by changing the basic motion. This included making the scale 25 and making the centre 519.64 and -389.9.
Actor 2: That all sounds complicated but impressive. Did you use any other software of the Mac?
Actor 1: Of course i did. I used Photoshop to create our ancillary products. This is a software i was familiar with but not so skilled with. Although, like final cut, i was able to learn quickly. In order to make our artist appear to have tattoos we downloaded tattoo templates and painted them on to the image of our artist and adjusted the colour t0 make the stamp realistic and not so harsh. To remove spots on our artist we used the clone stamp tool. Another tool i used was the magic pen tool. I used this to crop out a bit from an image and the drag and drop in onto another. This came in handy when i wanted to use the image of our artist but did not want the background. 

 Evaluation:
Actor 2: What was the forth and last thing you were going to look back at, again?
Actor 1: My evaluation. I did most of it on my laptop using Windows 7. I was able to use software such as Microsoft, Prezi Desktop and Google chrome. I used Microsoft for two things; Power point and Word. On Powerpoint i was able to make slideshow presentations which allowed to answer evaluation questions in depth as i could back statements with an image and annotate along side it. I used word to edit images by cropping and adding boarders. I then copied and paste them into powerpoint.
Actor 2: How did you view your powerpoint on blogger and did you use anyother software at home on your laptop?
Actor 1: In order to view my powerpoint on the blog i had to upload it onto Slideshare then paste the URL onto link. Prezi desktop is a step up from powerpoint as it allows you to place powerpoint' into your Prezi file and it includes great designs and it is more interactive in the way that you view the presentation. I uploaded my Prezi by copy and paste the html code into the HTML bit of the post then when i changed it to Compose, i was able to view the Prezi. A knew software i have learnt to use during the evaluation process is Xtranormal. I used this by choosing Actors, a scene and sounds. I then added my script into the storytelling. To make the presentation more interesting i was able to change the camera angles, motions, pauses, sound, image, faces, points and look-ats. 
Actor 2: That was very intriguing 
Actor 1: Thank-you for listening, i hope you have learnt something new. 

Xtranormal Presentation:

Evaluation Questions Andrew Carolan

In what way does your media product use from drewcarolan25

Homeboyz Movie
by: drewcarolan25

Alexandria Hasler - Evaluation

Q1 for evalutation from ajhasler

Q4: Evaluation
by: ajhasler

Q4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Research
Actor 1: So, how did new media technologies help you with your research for the project?
Actor 2: To start with, all of my research was done by using the internet, so I used safari on the Apple Mac at college and Mozilla Fire Fox at home on my PC. I used Google to research the typical conventions of a Rap/Hip-Hop video along with other things.
Actor 1: What else did you use Google for?
Actor 2: Well, I also used it to search for the lyrics of the song 'My House' so that I'd be able to know the lyrics and their meaning better. I also used it to search for Blogger and Youtube.
Actor 1: And how did Blogger and Youtube come into play?
Actor 2: I used Blogger to upload my research and also used Youtube to look at videos for songs and artists of the same genre.
Actor 1: And what did you gain from watching videos from the same genre?
Actor 2: It just allowed me to have a better knowledge of what is expected in a Rap video. This also gave me the inspiration to maybe take what they have achieved further and develop some of the typical conventions which have already been shown.
Actor 1: Okay, that sounds like you've really thought about it.

Planning
Actor 1: So what did you use to help you plan the shoot?
Actor 2: As a group we already had a brief idea of what we wanted to do, so it didn't really take much planning. We drew up a story board and put it on the blog firstly...
Actor 1: What programme did you use to do that?
Actor 2: Well, we decided that it would be easier to draw it by hand, so we drew it onto paper and took a photo of it using iPhoto so that we could still upload it to the blog.
Actor 1: And what is iPhoto?
Actor 2: iPhoto is an application on the Mac which basically uses the webcam above the screen to capture an image.
Actor 1: That sounds like a good idea! What else did you do?
Actor 2: Well, although we already knew what we wanted to do for our video, we still needed to plan it out, so I did a location list.
Actor 1: A location list?
Actor 2: Basically listing possible locations and saying if there are any limitations...
Actor 1: And were there?
Actor 2: Well there were a few possible limitations, we did our filming in urban areas so there was always going to be a danger of the public disturbing the filming.
Actor 1: And did the public cause any problems?
Actor 2: At times, yes. But when this happened we just filmed again.
Actor 1: So did your research help you when planning your shoot?
Actor 2: Yes, we had a blog post on Goodwins' Theory which helped us model our video on those key features. It also made filming go much smoother as we already had planned exactly what we wanted to do and how we would achieve it, we also considered everything which could go wrong, such as weather, risks, so that we were well prepared if anything were to go wrong.
Actor 1: How did you then move onto the construction?

Construction
Actor 2: The main thing was to actually film the footage. From doing this I refreshed my knowledge on how to use the Sony camera with the tripod to get steady shots and also learnt how to use a torch to create professional looking lighting using a reflective material. We experimented with the camera using different shots and angles, one being a high angle shot looking down at the artist which I think looked very interesting.
Actor 1: And what was the next step?
Actor 2: Next we took the camera back and uploaded the footage onto our Mac. We then opened this into Final Cut Express. We also had to add the music track into the sequence and delete all background music that came with the footage. We then had to sync the audio with the visual which is difficult but gets easier when you know what you're doing.
Actor 1: And how do you do that?
Actor 2: Listen to the music and mark on key vocal points onto the audio track. Then do the same on the footage and match the markings up. After that it was just about the cuts and making things look more professional and enjoyable to watch.
Actor 1: And how did you do that?
Actor 2: Well we needed to use different shot types and locations so I put in the different shots and matched it up to the audio again.
Actor 1: What else did you do to the footage?
Actor 2: Well the last clip was really long and in Goodwins' Theory it says that short quick clips are more interesting for the viewers, so we decided to cut the clip on every beat and added an effect called earthquake onto one and a reverese speed onto the next. We also had to change the brightness on some clips as they were filmed in different locations so had different lighting.
Actor 1: How did you do this?
Actor 2: We achieved this by colour correcting the footage. We changed the mid-whites, saturation and brightness on a selection of clips. This is found by going to effects, video filters and clicking on colour correction.
Actor 1: Was any other software apart from Final Cut Express used for the construction?
Actor 2: Yes, I used Photoshop to create both of our ancillary products. I have this software at home too so am quite familiar with it. We wanted to give our artist tattoos so did it on Photoshop.
Actor 1: And how did you give your artist tattoos?
Actor 2: Well we downloaded a tattoo stamp package and stamped them onto the image of our artist and rubbed out any of the tattoo which went further than the artists arms. We also used these stamps in the design of the cover.

Evaluation
Actor 1: And finally, your evaluation. How did you use technologies to help you with that?
Actor 2: Well, all of my evaluation was either done at home on my PC or at college on the college PC. I used Microsoft Office (Powerpoint), Slideshare, Prezi, Xtranormal and Mozilla Firefox.
Actor 1: What did you use those programmes for?
Actor 2: On Powerpoint I created a slideshow presentation answering the first question of my evaluation. I liked using powerpoint as it allowed me the use print screening to add an image of the music video to illustrate my point.
Actor 1: And Slideshare?
Actor 2: I used Slideshare to upload my Powerpoint and this allowed me to get the html code and paste it into Blogger.
Actor 1: And what did you use Prezi for?
Actor 2: I used Prezi in the same way that I used Powerpoint only to answer question three. It is also a more interactive way to do a slideshow. I then copied the html code and again pasted it onto Blogger.
Actor 1: And what is Xtranormal?
Actor 2: Xtranormal is a programme in which you can create characters and make them say things. Which is what I am doing this script for!

Twitter Page

I decided to make a twitter page seem like it was popular, as it is hard to receive lots of followers on twitter I thought I should do some photoshop. I think our Star would use twitter to keep in contact with his fans and to make it seem personal, he would promote his music and let fans get closer to his personal life. Many celebrities use twitter to get close to fans and to show the real them, not what the press would portray of them. I think more Celebrities use twitter rather than Facebook mainly because how easy it is compared, for example, following your favorite celebrity can be done with a click.

Profile Screenshot

A Tweet

Analysis of magazine advert

I think that are magazine advert really fits are genre and star persona. I think that this advert will really appeal to are target audience. this is advert i not like anything i have really seen before and that is why it think it appeals to me so much. i think that this ad would be very effective in promoting legacy's new album "Back on the Scene". when creating this advert we were undisive on the text  but now looking at it i think it realy suits the advert.

Analysis of real magazine Advert

The advert on the left is for swedish house mafia new song greyhound. This ad is very effective, however now sedish house mafia are so famous they don't really have to advertise the song any more. this ad is very simple and plain however this works very well. The Ad on the right is swedish house mafia and absoulte vodka, these two were working together as in swedish house mafia new single "Greyhounds" Video they advertise Absoulute Vodka a lot.
.

Analysis of Real DIgipak

This is Swedish house Mafia deluxe edition album "Until Now". The wanted to to be an album to remeber as this would be there second form last album so they wanted there fans to be pleased with the music that they where producing for this album. With this deluxe album you get more than just extra songs you also get the vinyl copy as well as the CD and free downloadable album also. 

Swedish house mafia have also produced a DVD witch comes free in this deluxe album, with messages form each star, live performances and behind the scene at live shows.

This Deluxe Album does stand out from others as you very rarely get vinyl records any more especially  form world famous artists such as Swedish house Mafia. You also get a lot of bonus tracks and remixs as they are world famous DJ's.

Analysis of Student Magazine Advert

 

This is a good example of a Student magazine advert. The artist is called Autumn and although it may not be an original idea or a massive breakthrough but by the using leafs as the back ground and one big leaf for her tour details is very effective and it seems to really suit the artist and they genre and style. It is also very effective that they have have added a website for there artist on the bottom of the advert, this would be helpful for the audience as she is also trying to sell tickets to see her live on tour around the UK.

Analysis of Stundent Digipak

This is a digipak made for a deluxe album  this is an example of the digipaks made by students. Although the genre of music for this digipak is Indie/Rock, this is still very helpful for when designing are digipak. This Digipak has a good layout, i like where the have put the CD, as this is not a usual place for the CD. this is re-enforcing that this is an alternative genre of music. I also like how there is not to much imagery on the album, the consistent theme of fire in each segment. The way the have kept the digipak is very effective, i think that this looks alot better than if the had tried to fill up all 6 segmants, as this would start to bore the audience as the informaation out on would become less relevant.

Evaluation Max Carter

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Q4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research,planning and evaluation stages?

Script For ExtraNormal: 

Character One: Just Answer The Question 

Character Two: Ok Sorry, What was the question again? 

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

Character Two:Well The first new technique I learnt was using After Effects CS6. I wanted to try out the 3D camera tracker. It was a lot of trial and error at first, but I got the hang of it. I wanted to use the camera tracker to try a new technique that I haven't tried before, it will create text in 3D space, and when the camera moves that text will stay in it's current position in relation with the scene. This new technology has helped me develop my skill in after effects, It also looked pretty sick. How about you? 

Character One:Well, taking influence from the music video for Hey There Deliah I wanted to incorporate A split into the video. I did this through Final Cut. First of all I create a white solid, this was going to be used as the background. Next I needed to scale and crop the clips I wanted to use until we managed to create something which resembles a split. I did this so the star was able to be shown a lot more. You Must have something else to say... 

Character Two:Yes I do, Some of our scenes were a little dark due to the lighting conditions. SO we had to colour correct slightly, Although not much as the darker scenes go with the Urban feel we were trying to create. Say one more thing before we go. 

Character One: Ok, I also used photoshop to create the advert and digi pack. I wanted to give our star tattoos, so i downloaded a tattoo brush template, it was a little tricky but i managed to make them look fairly real. I had the paint the tattoos on and then rub out around the arm so they didn't overlap.

Character Two: And the most important technology we used was the camera, we were able to film our music video with, we also made some use of the lighting equipment when we did our photoshoot, the camera we used for that was a Canon eleven hundred D, which allowed us to get High Res images to work with. What about research? 

Character One:Well I made good use of Safari and Google Chrome to help me with my research, I used Safari when I was using the Macs and Google Chrome when I was at home. Using these browsers we were able to find a lot of the information we needed, such as the conventions of Hip-Hop and Rap, Dance Styles and the lyrics to our song. I also used YouTube to help find Hip Hop videos to help with some inspiration, such as Macklemore. Using these browsers also helped me make good use of our blog, using blogger. the blog is where we put all our research onto and helped us plan a lot of our work. The blog is where all our research and planning is present. Got anything on evaluating? 

Character Two: Of course, for question 1 I used powerpoint to answer the question. After I created the powerpoint I went onto a website called slideshare, i was able to import my powerpoint into it, this allowed me to embed my powerpoint into a post on blogger.

Character One:Any other browser software you had to use? 

Character Two:Yep, I used Prezi to answer question 2, Prezi is slightly similar to powerpoint, but it allows you to be a lot more creative, I've used prezi before so I was familiar to it, in Prezi you are able to create different shapes and images, and some mad transitions. I also had to embed this into my blog. Oh and I'm also using some browser software right now! 

Character One:Shut Up 

Character Two:Nope i'm using xtranormal to answer this question, It isn't very difficult to use, and after some playing around you are able to get used to it, its similar to filming, as you are able to direct the actors and choose different camera angles, you also have the ability to make the actors say whatever you want. this will also have to be embedded. 

Character One: Well that's creepy, anyway. We also used final cut one more time to answer question 3. I also learnt a new technique while answering question 3, it was to shrink the video of us talking to the camera and to put it into the top right corner. I did this by scaling the clip and moving it into position. We did this so it was clearer who was talking. We also did another split screen so we were able to show the before and after on certain clips. 

Character Two:Overall I developed my skills using after effects with the 3D camera tracker and photoshop with different ways to colour correct, and adding the tattoos. I have also got a lot more comfortable using Final cut and prezi, I believe using all these techniques and technologies we were able to complete the goals and create an urban atmosphere.

Evaluation Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Script For Feedback Video

Max
We have learnt a lot from our audience feedback by looking at written comments, as well as the video feedback. These are the parts that our audience enjoyed and suggested we could keep.
First of all, a lot of people of people enjoyed the text effects at the beginning of the video, they found it to look professional and sick, it was also unique, as no one else had attempted this.
Next they thought the costume changes were a key aspect to the music video and it follows the conventions of a hip-hop/ rap video, it kept it fresh as the artist continuously changed clothes, it also showed the star's sense of style.
Keeping the location at the car park added to the theme of the music video, which was to create a street/urban atmosphere.
We added different shot types which they liked as it went with the tempo, the shot types helped us make a good use of our location.
Another unique idea that they liked was the split screens with the clip, it helped us sell the artist more, as we were able to show him a lot more.
They were also fond on the dancing that was included in the video, firstly they enjoyed drews dancing and found it entertaining, next we had a choreographed dance routine, which also follows the conventions of some hip-hop/rap music video. We then had the star breakdancing in the car park, which again helps with the street/urban feel.

Kisu
Although there was a lot the audience enjoyed about our rough cut, there were also some suggested improvements that needed to be made. One thing that people noticed was that some clips were a lot darker than others. This was mostly because we filmed at different times and some scenes were out side compared to others inside and so resulted in different lighting.
Another comment was that there was not enough quick cuts between shots and so some clips were getting too long. we needed to change this as the audience would get bored of watching the same long clip. The last clip was the longest clip that the audience suggested changing as it was just the artist walking up to the camera. The suggestions were that we needed to make it more interesting somehow.

Allie
We took on board every improvement as well as all the criticism we received from the feedback in order to improve our final music video.
One clear improvement was the colour correction. We increased the Mid Whites, brightness and saturation so that all clips had similar lighting. This made the video look professional rather than amateur.
We also added more quick cuts as this was a suggestion most people made. By doing this it made the music video much more interesting to watch.
The last clip of the music video was a long shot of our artist walking towards the camera. This shot was very boring to watch and so we needed to change in in order to keep the audience engaged through out. We did this by cutting the long clip on every bit that the beat changed. After the clip was cut, we added a reverse speed effect on selected clips as well as an earthquake effect on the other cut clips. This resulted in the effect that the screen was shaking on the beat and also emphasized the beat of the song which would leave the tune in the audience' mind.
At the end of the rough cut there was a long blackness with no music or visual on show. We removed this as it was not needed and only made the video appear longer.

Planning Notes For Task 3

Feedback

Before:
What people enjoyed watching and wanted to keep

• Drew's dancing
• The use of break dancing and Kisu's and Alyshas choreography 
• Costume Changes
• Theme, car park
• Text at the start
• Screen Splits
• Location/Shots.

Things that need to be improved

• Some clips were too dark
• long clips and the end of max walking down the car park was too long and boring
• Need more cuts
• darkness at the end for 2 minutes.

After:

We took onboard every criticism we recieved in order to improve our music video

• Colour Corrected
• Added more cuts
• Added reverse speed to some bits to the last clip, in order to make it less boring and long, also added an earthquake effect which moved to the beat
• removed the dark 2 minutes at the end.

Extra Content For Digipak

To keep to the theme of the Digipak and the message inside it. We would also add an exclusive backstage CD coverage of Legacy in the process of Producing his album and music video. A chance to get to know the  artist in depth a bit more.

This would be the Edited image used for the CD. It keeps to the theme of our Digipak.