Goodbye Blog.

So its been a long journey, two years of blogging. I can say that I've learnt alot throughout this process and I think I'll miss blogging (just a little though) and I want to thank the teachers for teaching me and to everyone I worked with. It was fun. And I'm kind of glad its over. BYE. :D


I think this is the shortest sign off ever. Oh well.

FINAL GOODBYE

This is the end of a long journey, and I have had a roller-coaster ride through the two years that I have done media, and I am sad to say that it is going to end. I am really going to miss blogging, and I'm glad that I can say that I have learned a lot by doing this course.  Thank you to all my teachers through out the two years I've been in City and Islington Sixth form College, it wouldn't have been possible without them. I have made a little video for this momentous occasion.... 

SIGN OFF!

Well, we come to an end of this whole coursework process - and I'm glad.

Here's a video illustrate how I feel (well for the most part).

Expect I won't see you again because I'm in A2 and won't be doing this again next year.
Anyway, Goodbye now!

FINALLY MEDIA IS DONE. BLOGGING, MUSIC VIDEO AND ANCILLARY!

WOW! COME A LONG WAY AND FEELS GREAT TO GET THIS PART OF MEDIA DONE. BEEN A VERY TIRING LONG COURSEWORK. MOST EFFORT NEEDED FOR THIS. AND HOPE AT THE END WILL BE WORTH IT. TIME TO 'KINDOF' RELAX AND LETS CELEBRATE TO THE FINISHING OF MEDIA COURSEWORK 2012. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY !! :D :D :D :D MY LAST EVER EVER EVER EVER BLOG THAT I WILL EVER DO YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!

BELOW IS THE MUSIC OF CELEBRATION- COME ON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Evaluation: Question 4

4. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

On Tuesday 6th December all the A2 students went to 'Screen on the Green' in Islington to watch all our music videos. I remember it being fun from last year when we went to watch our thriller openings, so I was excited to see everyones music videos. Our video was the second one shown and it caught all of us by surprise because we weren't expecting to have ours shown until near the end. So I didn't manage to record it but people generally enjoyed it. It was interesting because I could spot all the little things that were wrong with the video.

For the most part everyone really liked the faces we had in the chorus as we used people from our college and the shots that we had of the London Eye at night. No-one really had anything for us to improve on except that the faces could have been all in equal space, as some had more background space than others.

I think its important to know how the audience feels about our video, because if this was for real you would definitely want to know what they think before you release it to the world. And because this is our first video, we would want it to be perfect in order to show our artist in the best light possible. Obviously we didn't have enough time to ask lots of people but in general if I was able to make changes and improve on it I would probably spend longer filming the shots I filmed, especially the moving ones of the London Eye, as they aren't steady at all. I would also film in better weather (obviously) and have more costumes and different looks for our artist as we only had one. If I had more time, I would develop the storyline in more depth. I think this wold make it look more like a conventional pop video. 

Here is Viet and Mehdi giving me feedback on my advert and album cover. They had similar opinions that my album cover and advert were quite good and there is a clear link between them. They also had the same view about my inside cover, that it could have been better because it looked plain. I agree with them as I already knew the outside cover was much better than the inside, so I was prepared for them to say this. If I was going to do it again then I would get a really good picture of the London Eye and make it spread over both covers. I would also give the CD a design that linked to both my ancillary products.

When we finished our video on final cut pro, before we published it we got some feedback from people just to make final checks that we hadn't missed anything. We asked throughout the process of making the video, as we didn't want to make the whole video and then realise or have someone tell us that something didn't match up or a shot looked a bit dodgy. Some of the things people told us to change was to mix up some of the faces because we had at first put lots of faces from one location together. 

Overall, I think our video was executed quite well despite all the obstacles we had.

EVALUATION QUESTION 4 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Music Video

Tuesday 6th December at 12:30 all us A2 media student went to 'The Screen on the Green" to watch our music videos on the big screen. 

Although I didn't catch the part before our music video actually started playing - that is because the sequence is done at random - we did get a warm welcoming applause. As you can see from the video, we did get a good reaction after our video had finished. The chorus especially received the most reaction, as people were enthused by the fact that they were seeing familiar faces, or their face, on the big screen. These audience reactions led me to believe that our music video was effective in engaging the audience, thus teaching me that the idea of including familiar faces was successful. My target audience then would be interested and engrossed in the video as they can relate to it and feel more included. 

After the screening was done, I went outside and asked some people, whom I thought would be of my target audience, some questions about my music video so that I could establish what worked and what didn’t work. 

Malika supported my comment about the chorus (different faces) reaching out to my audience. She confirmed that my choice of locations were good is showing the beauty of London. Most importantly, she told me that music video looked realistic/common of other music videos and that she would be more interested on the son after watching the video.  Her feedback ensured me that my target audience was being attracted and interested, which was my goal. 

Zahra gave me a lot of feedback. She agreed with our choice of shots, our costume and our locations – which were all chosen in attempt to show the beauty of London. She also acknowledged our amplification structure of which is why we went from night to day. According to Zahra editing was effective, especially the chorus, it was just enough and was also kind of humorous. From this I learned that my music video was effective in reaching my target audience through editing, mise – scene and camera shots.    

Jade informed me that my first shot set the scene really well and it evoked anticipation in the audience – as Dan told us it would before – that was really good. However, she also told me that the costume let my video down, and I understand this. If I were to do this video again I would change the costume and make her more stylized, to make it more conventional of a music video. We chose that costume because it was floral, but we could have still stuck with the floral idea and still been more extravagant and eccentric – as most music videos do. For example, in Katy Perry – California Girls Katy Perry was very stylized wearing a costume that over exaggerated her theme or candy.

     With the locations, she informed me that the wide range of locations was a good choice and she got what we were trying to generate to our audience – the beauty of London through lots of different locations.  She also understood the message behind the chorus – they beauty of London through the diversity in it. Her feedback inferred the success of our music video, however her feedback also enlightened me to the fact that the stylization of the artist is vitally important as in some ways it could make or break a video. 

Response on Vimeo

Ancillary 

I interviewed Chloe who is not a media student. When asked about any visual links, she was able to recognise the guitar and the colour scheme as a visual link throughout my digipack and also realized that it linked to my video and complemented that the choice of colours were well chosen. She felt that my goal to portray the guitar as an important aspect was successful.

     However when asked about the costume, similar to Jade, she felt that the costume let us down.  She explained that it could in a way be acceptable as it makes my artist more relatable, but she then went on to say, as I said before within Jade’s feedback reply, it’s conventional for artists, especially on their digipacks, to be heavily stylized.

     As I agree the front cover, as she noted, “can look a bit boring.” This because it’s very plain and bland, so if I were to do this again I would think of trying to be more creative with the front cover – not so much in terms of the images or props, but the design and graphics on it, to make it that little bit more eye catching.

     She informed me that she felt that the best panel was the back panel, because it was very creative and looked good on the page contrastingly she felt that the inside left panel lacked creativity, thus labeling that panel as her worst panel.

     Overall she advised that biggest improvement could have been the costume – which I totally agree with. 

Sorry about all the noise in the background – it was immediately after lesson, so a lot of people were still in the room and more were coming in for workshop.

Questionnaire of promotional package

To gain more feedback for both my promotional package I composed a questionnaire and generated it to both media and non-media student to gain a more general view by asking people who are not aware of things through a 'media eye.' A questionnaire is a good way to gather feedback because I am able to collect both qualitative and quantitive data.

This was my questionnaire:

These were the results:

Most of my participants were female and between the ages of 16-19 and listening to mostly Pop, R&B and Grime. 

The main message behind the music video was about the beauty of London.

a) On a scale on 1-5 how accurate was I portraying that message through my use of:

Generally the feedback of the thing that they thought worked best in the music video was the chorus of different faces. My feedback of the things that worked least in the video were; costume, the lip sinking, and the artist's performance as some said they lost interest towards the end because of this. 

My responses to the think that worked best in the ancillary were mostly the girl sitting on the guitar. Other responses included the incorporation of the colours and just the colours. On the other hand the they mostly felt that the weakest thing was the costume. 

In conclusion the thing that I believed worked best in the music video and ancillary as a whole was the prop of guitar because this set me out from the rest. What worked least me was similar to the opinions to the audience – the costume. Therefore if I were to do this project again I would try to make the link between music video and ancillary even stronger by drawing more on the prop of the guitar in my music video so the prop dominance is equally as that in my ancillary, as this is what my audience feel worked best in my ancillary. Also, to hopefully decrease those statistics of people that wouldn’t be more interested in the artist and her music after seeing the music video and digipack and advertisement, I would recognize the vitally of the artists stylization. As this appeared to be a significant fault, next time round I would put more into her image and trying to portray her as a music artist, rather than an ‘ordinary person.’ Another thing that I’ve realized was lacking is the artist performance. I do notice that she does get more fed up with the video as it goes along, and this was probably because the whole construction became tedious for her, and she maybe wasn’t so enthused because it’s not her work, so she won’t feel the need to push herself. The avoid this problem next time round, I would chose the artist that is within my group, so that they don’t become unmotivated, and also I would try to keep the artist more interested by not packing on work too much but filming in acceptable amounts, so it doesn’t become over bearing. In order to do that I would have to be VERY well planned.
      Although I didn't record it, Dan did mention to me that my artist on my front cover was too small with might make her harder for a shopper to identify her. This criticism I believe is true. The fault lies within the picture of the guitar, I took that picture at a wrong angle, so they guitar looked too big. I notice notice it until I was trying to put my artist on the guitar but I couldn't do anything about that because I didn't have the guitar anymore. To avoid a similar problem in the future, I would take more alternative pictures of the guitar and also be more planned so that I schedule in a date where I could take the guitar again in case my pictures didn't turn out so well.

Lastly a main issue of my promotional package is that my target audience is a bit too specific, and it is harder for my products to reach people outside of my target audience. This is a big problem because her music and image is being very refined, thus her promotion is not as successful as it would be if the products reached a more boarder audience. Therefore to me more successful next time round I would try to included elements in my promotional package that can entice a wide, diverse audience, for example I would included conventions that are found in other genres not just pop. 

EVALUATION QUESTION 3 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Here's a video of me answer question 3 :)

JVC Cameras – Because we wanted to get the best quality images we used JVC cameras, which are HD. The camera allowed us to capture motion images and audio. We used the audio recording to mark the words that the artist is singing to the audio on Final Cut Pro.

Final Cut Pro – Through this I could add in videos and blend different scenes together with effects like cross fade for seamless transitions. I could also add in an audio, them mark to beat so that I can cut the music to the beat and make one music video.

Photoshop – Photoshop contains tools that enable me to cut out the artist from the background and place her onto the guitar. To add realism, I painted in the shadows and added in the Gaussian Blur to soften the edges.

On my inside left panel to get that wall background I got a grudge texture off Google, then drew lines for perspective then faded out the grudge texture so that its not so clear so that we can get the feeling that she is leaning against the wall.

Illustrator (I forgot to talk about this in my video) – I used Illustrator to draw out the artist name and floral graphics using the ‘pen tool’, which allows me to make any shape I want. 

EVALUATION QUESTION 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I answered question 2 using Beeclip, which is a type of interesting and fun presentaion.

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

Evaluation Question 1 on Prezi

Evaluation Question 4...

4. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Okay so i didnt get loads of feedback on my music video because i was not able to find them in the hard drive anymore. the feedback from the screen on the green. I also lost some feedback from before. So i have one qwick feedback for my music video. 

Below are all the comments i got fore my ancillary Product. I put it up on facebook so my friends can see and comment on it aswell!!!

So here is the overall feedback i got from the Digipack and the advetisment. I got 2 Positive feedback :).

Here Is the front panal of the digipack. I got '6 Likes' and One comment. :D 

Here is my advertisement and i an equal feedback, with some opinions. :) This comment was mainly positive and the only critism i got was about the bar code which is not a big deal, but overall i find the comment quite fair. and i am happy with it. 

This is feedback from my Teacher Dan. 

Dan said the real streath of my digipack is the quality of the photography. The shot is framed really nicely its really well lit and really nice. What I haven’t done is which is an easy thing to do is which is graphic and layer is that I have not ruined is with top grapy the typography is quite nice and does not spilt it at all and looks really good nice simple clear fonts same green theme which is continued at the back which is really really nice and consist and works really well with the font a nice piece of design.

From this feedback I don’t really see any negative comments been made. I happy very happy with the feedback from my teacher and don’t see what I could have done better. 

‘ He said its really good, The font the different use of font of where I used bold and non- bold etc its really goes with the background, used really nice affects, what I wanted to show really stands out. I used the same kind of thing on the back panal, but its for a different reason, but still really stands out. He said he really likes the background of the back panal, it imitates some of the examples we used for the digipack. Also he mentioned how I used the font bold and normal, maybe it be hard for someone with less vision might be harder to see but apart from that its really good’.  

Well here again. It’s a fantastic comment great feedback. Mostly posistive, which I am very happy about again. I think from these feedback it tells me how much effort and hard work I have put in to receive comments like this. He didn’t mention nothing to major that was negative. Well now thinking about it well maybe it be hard with people with bad eye sight to see it properly, but is not too much of a big deal to change because the font is not that bad, it is okay to see.  

This is valaza and she is from my media class who also gave me feedback. !

'She said its really good, she really likes the front cover especially, the close up of the artist face is really good for establishing the artist, she likes the colour scheme, looks autum theme with the oranges greens, also she likes how I used the same image for the advert, its good shows a good link between the two, also how I used just an imagie for the front not for the whole thing. She said I could have used more pictures on it to extablish the artist abit more'. 

Again mostly positive comments. I am really happy about. The only concern she said was about establishing the artist more, about adding maybe another picture of the artist. Well I agree with the comment. Now thinking about it I think I could have established her abit more. However The reason why I did not put another picture of artist is because my image at the front already stands out really well. It’s a big close up which is clearly shown on the front cover quite well, so I didn’t want to add more pictures of her. However I have learnt maybe next time if the picture wasn’t quite quite zoomed in and big close-up I should add another picture of the artist to astablish her more. However overall I think its quite fair and there was not much negatives things said, which needs big improvements, so I am happy! 

“He said he really like my front cover likes the color scheme, It’s a big picture of the artist which shows who she is, like the way the font as being used as well, goes from normal to bold, likes the inside the use of format, the guitar, and the picture. Likes the advert, how I used the same picture of the artist, the font is good, looks professional, the use of hmv, Itunes etc, and the website which looks really professional.

Wow! Some amazing feedback. No negatives. Well what can I say! I am overwhelmed again by the comments. How he said it looks professional. I am very very happy.

Overall with all my feedback I don’t see what I can improve on because most comments I got was really positive. I am very happy. Just shows how much effort you put in is what you get out. As I did work hard for it, to deserve feedback like this. I think their all-fair comments. I do not have much thing to say on improvements because I didn’t receive bad comments to improve on. However except one, which I think is fair, but isn’t something I would do differently because of how it is already. I have learnt a lot this year about how much time you put into something is it comes out. I worked hard which is the reason why most people really liked it and I got positive feedback. I am really happy with it. Also i think the music video is a great success but theres always more room for improvements and i think if we had more time to anything it would be even more better. 

Thank you to all. 

Evaluation Question 3....

3. How did you use media technologies in the construction and reasearch, planning and evaluation Stages?

I used loads of different technologies in the research planning and construction and evaluation stage. I used many hard wears including the Brand new state of art- 

 The JVC video cameras with memory cards. I used this equipment which enabled me to video my footages. 

 I used the memory which the footages where saved in and upload them on the mac computers to view all my footages I have done.  Which also allowed me to import it on to my video drive.

I used another piece of equipment which allowed me to illustrate my planning and research was the flip camers. This allowed me to get audience feedback from my music video from the ‘screen on the green’ and also allowed me to also get feedback on my ancillary work. I also used this for group ideas, and teachers feedback. 

I used mac computers for the editing of my video. Through this hardwear I was able to use soft wears such as Final cut pro, which can only be used on mac.

Final cut pro is a programme which allows us to edit videos profeccinally. I used this programme to edit all my video. I used this to add clip, cut in clip, add affects, videos matched to the beats, cross dissolve between clips, which I used in my video to introduce the night time.

I also used this for my annamatic story board.

Another piece of softwear I used was photoshop. This is an softwear which is highly designed to edit photos. This allowed me to cut, crop, brighten add affects n etc. I used this in my ancillary products to add affects to my images. 

Handbreak is another softwear which allowed me to video format and to convert my footages to go on to my blog. 

I used the internet to reaserach and look for ideas images and etc for both my ancillary and music video. I used google to get many of my sources for the reacherch part in this task.

 Youtube was one important website for the music video part. It allowed me to look and get inspirations from artists, and find out more about how the forms and conventions are coorperated in videos. 

I used Prezi which again allowed me to use online to upload pictures, videos, tasks, and information for my work. 

 This is the hard drive where i saved all my clips. The edited ones and etc. 

Blogger is a highly visited programme which allowed me to document my work regurally.

 

Evalution Question 2.....

2. How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipack and advertisement)?

Copy of Copy of How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipack and advertisement)? on Prezi

Evaluation: Question 3.

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

Throughout this process, we've used loads of different types of technology to present our work. For example to flim, we used JVC video cameras to film our music video. All our footage was stored on memory cards which we were then able to transfer onto our hardrives so we could make our music video.

To film music video related stuff, like feedback and group sessions, we used FlipCams. They're really small and useful to have, whenever filming something important it was easy to just grab and film and upload. I used this to film feeback on my ancillary products and reactions to our music video after the cinema screening. Can you imagine having to carry around that big JVC around?

To edit, the main program we used was Final Cut Pro. We used the same thing last year, so we were familiar with the program just a bit rusty on how to use it. But by the end, I would say we're all pros on it. This program is installed on the Mac computers we used on which we uploaded all our footage to, then selected and cut together to make our final video. We were also able to add special effects, such as layering and filters to make it look more professional.

We created our animatic using the same program, but used Quicktime player to play it on. All the videos we had were watched on this program, something that just let you watch what you recorded really.

This is what our hardrive looked like. All the footage we had was stored and organised into folders accordingly (colour co-ordinated) and this just made it much easier for us to look for what we needed when it came to editing, as we didn't need to waste time looking through every single clip.

Handbrake is the program we used to convert our film so it was compatible with blogger and we were able to upload it. After handbraking our video, only then could they be uploaded other wise they wouldn't work. Below is an example of a video on blogger.

To make our ancillary products, I used photoshop. This allowed me to layer pictures and add text and effects to make the album covers and advert.

To present our pitch to the class, we made our presentation on Microsoft PowerPoint, where we were able to put all the information onto one document and present it to the class.

To conduct research, I used the internet the most. This was to search for potential locations, for pictures of other artists work, to get background info on our original artist. I used the search engine Google to find everything. Everything. Google images for pictures of album covers and adverts. Google maps to find our locations. Google videos for research. And Youtube as well to search for music videos.

To document our journey we used digital cameras so we could take pictures of what we were doing so we could upload them on to blogger as proof.  I used Prexi, a fun and interesting online website that allows you to create a presentations in a different form to answer a question.

Annnnnnnnddddd finally, the place where we stored and documented everything. The one and only, Blogger. We uploaded everything we did on here: from research to our pitch to editing sessions.

 The amount of times I saw this when trying into log in. Worst nightmare.