Final post!

Evaluations

Here are the evaluations in order so that you don't have to scroll through the whole blog to try and find them! For some reason the Prezis don't always fully load, so you may have to watch through them on the Prezi website rather than watching through them on the blog.

Evaluation question one

Evaluation question two

Evaluation question three

Evaluation question four

Question four script

Question three script

Question two script

Script for evaluation question one

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

Second question

I have now finished all of my evaluations! I'll post the scripts for the audio tomorrow just in case it isn't always clear what I'm saying.

Third question response

This is my response to the third question of our evaluations. I have almost finished my evaluations now, I just have to record some audio for my last presentation and then I'm done!

Change of plan

Originally I had planned to produce two of my evaluation questions on PowerPoint, and two on Prezi. This afternoon I've been trying to record my screen with the PowerPoint playing, but for some reason the mic on my laptop is rubbish and isn't picking up the sound of my audio recordings or embedded videos! So now I've decided to save myself the hassle and complete all of my evaluations on prezi, hopefully you don't die of boredom by the end of them! 

Audience feedback - survey

I created a survey on Survey Monkey then shared it, along with our music video to some of my friends on facebook.

 I had seven responses and here are the results:

Audience Feedback

I asked our two actors to give their feedback on our music video, here are the results!

Second evaluation complete!

This was the evaluation that I started first, although I've only just finished recording the audio so it's the second presentation up! 

First evaluation complete

Here is my first completed evaluation! I haven't completed them all in order, so this is the fourth question. The evaluation process is going well so far, I have one finished, two with just the audio to go in, and one that I have all of the bits for but I just need to present it. Hopefully I'll have at least two more up by tomorrow! 

Feedback on filming

We decided we would like to ask our actors to give their feedback on how what they thought of the whole filming process. This would let us know how we well we did in terms of organisation, and how much of our actors time we used up. This was very important to find out because if we ever film again and have to organise actors we are able to see what we can improve upon.

Ancillary task feedback

I wanted some video feedback for question two of the evaluation, so I asked two members of my target audience to look at my digipak, magazine advert, and final music video and give their views on how the three products fit well together, and how well they think they'd sell as a package.

Feedback videos

Today Seher and I edited the feedback videos we have so far, although we would definitely like to get some more from people in our age group (target audience).

Planning for evaluation

Question one

Question two

Question three

Question four

Over the past couple of days I've been conducting some research into each question of the evaluation. I decided to do a plan with a breakdown of each question and what I might want to include in my writing for each of them. I've also started to consider how I might present each question e.g prezi with voiceover/videos or just videos with inserts.

Evaluation help

I found this really useful presentation on slideshare that breaks down each of the evaluation questions and suggests a way to present each one.

Age restriction

We have spent some time thinking over the part in our video that features drug use. Seher and I didn't think it was too much of an issue to include it as we aren't glamourising drug use in any way, our character is quite clearly struggling with a problem! But just as a precaution we changed the age restriction on YouTube when we uploaded our music video. This means that no one under the age of 18 is able to watch our music video.

Evaluation

Now that we've finished our music video the time has come to start planning and writing out what I'm going to say in my evaluation videos. Here are the questions:

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
• What have you learned from your audience feedback?
• How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

To begin my thought process I am going to watch other evaluation videos to see what people in previous years have mentioned. Then, I will make up a mind map for each question which will help me write my first draft for each question.

Ferdinand de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure

Here is the video for 'Scala & Kolacny Brothers - Use Somebody'. The video features many signs and signifiers, some of which include:

Key: Signifier

       Signified

The oxygen tube in the woman's nose brings about the idea that this woman is very ill and can't breathe for herself.

The man sitting in his underwear, with his hands on his knees, with lots of negative space around him provides the viewer with the idea that the man is very lonely.

A woman scantily dressed in a shop window with a red background is generally seen to be a prostitute.

We can see the woman from the start hugging herself with an empty seat next to her, this shows she is lonely and as we know she is ill (oxygen tube) we can now assume that she is dead, possibly a ghost.

We are shown a shot of the woman wiping away tears which shows that she is saddened by the fact the man has gone to see a prostitute.

From looking at the signifier and signified in this video it is quite easy to see why Ferdinand de Saussure's theory is so effective. The viewer of the music video is able to build up a much deeper meaning than we hear through the song lyrics through the connotations brought about by what we see. We took this into consideration and tried to use lots of signifiers in our own music video, some of these are:

The church windows bring about the idea of religion, and possibly Christianity as these windows wouldn't necessarily be seen in churches from other religions. 

When we see a person kneeling at a grave we are lead to think that they have lost a loved one.

A person holds their head in their hands when they are feeling negative emotions such as stress or sadness.

Needles, burnt out matches and a belt lead us to believe that this person is a heroin abuser.

The nearly-empty bottle of alcohol shows the viewer that this person may also have a drinking problem.

Final magazine advert

The final magazine advert!

Magazine advertisement

I have finished my magazine advert! I must admit it took a lot less time to make than the digipak because in making the digipak I had all of the pieces for my magazine advert and I just had to drag them onto a blank photoshop canvas. I looked up online the dimensions for a music magazine:

I decided to go with the page size that Rolling Stone Magazine uses as they are a reputable music magazine. I went into photoshop 7, created a new canvas, and changed the dimensions to the size I needed.

For my three images I ended up using the album cover as the main feature, the back panel for my digipak as the background of my advertisement, and the circles as a feature under the text. This will allow people to easily associate my digipak with my magazine advertisement.

In another document I created my album reviews: 

I found on google, and saved a .PNG version of the NME logo which meant it had no background which means it's much easier to work with in terms of dragging it onto my advertisement as it would blend in better. I created a little star using the pen tool:

Once I was happy with one star I duplicated the layer four more times so that I would be left with five stars. I linked all of the parts of the rating and dragged the whole thing onto my magazine advertisement. I used this process to make the Kerrang review and for the 'available on iTunes' logo.

(I'll put the finished product in another post so you don't have to scroll through all of this!)

FINAL VIDEO!!!!

WE HAVE FINISHED!!! Today Seher and I went over a few bits that I added in last lesson, then Miss Foster raised the issue that our instrumental circles might be a bit too long... So we cut the circles at each change, then added in the footage of the windows from the start. It was quite a stressful process trying to fit it all to the beat of the music, and every time we added or removed footage, everything else in front of it was put out of time, including the lip syncing! I'm glad we've finally finished now, and we're both very proud of our final outcome!

Magazine advert planning

Album advert

Album cover

Album advert

Album art

Album advert

Album art

I've found some examples of album adverts for magazines online and have found some common links between them:

• Band name in a larger font then album title in a smaller font underneath
• The same art work as the CD so that the CD is easily recognisable 
• Release date
• Where it's available to buy online e.g 'play.com' or 'iTunes'
• Record label
• Band website
• Reviews (Fleet Foxes and Stone Roses)

After considering all of these elements, I will include:

1. Front panel of the album

2. Record label

3. Possible design for release date (font)

4. 'Available on iTunes'

5. Possible design for web address (font)

6. Possible design for album ratings