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

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use

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

Evaluation Question: How have you used media technologies during the construction of your media videos

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

When creating my music video I had to use media technologies for both the research planning, construction and evaluation stages of my video. The piece of technology that got the most use by far was the iMac. It gave us access to the internet which was the tool we used for all of our research as even our surveys were done online.

For our audience research we used Survey Monkey however one of the key problems with survey monkey is that it encourages people to give unhelpful or rude replies just to seem funny, due to the anonymous nature of the internet. We would not have had this problem if we had conducted surveys in person and this proved to be a problem for me as it limited the usefulness of the surveys particularly when it came to evaluating the video in which I was left with very few usable responses to go from.  We also used websites such as facebook to share the surveys via social networking.

For research of actual music videos the only website we used was YouTube as it has the largest amount of content on it. We also used Blogger to keep a record of all of our research and progress. However the issue with using a computer for anything long term is that there is always the chance of malfunction or breakdown, while we were lucky enough not to suffer with this all of our work could have been made inaccessible if the computers had an issue. This would have been worse if the issue couldn’t be resolved as it would mean we would have to use computers other than the macs in our classroom to do a large amount of our work. Again thankfully this was not the case however it is a weakness to using them.

When it came to actually creating the music video our main equipment was our phones and the HD camera while filming. Phones were important for keeping in contact with each other and of course we used the HD Camera to film. Unfortunately due to the way our videos were uploaded we were not able to keep our video in full HD, this was a disappointing set back as the camera quality itself was beautiful.

We also used the macs a lot for editing, using Final Cut Pro to edit together out footage, this however was the only way we could edit our footage realistically and there was no alternative other than using a computer of some sort.

In addition to our music video I also had to make use of technology to make the digipak and webpage. I used publisher for the Digipak and I used a mixture of powerpoint and iWeb for my webpage. Using iWeb to make the layout of the page itself and powerpoint for my text boxes. The positives of this were that the softwares compliment each other well, however iWeb was not user friendly at all and often did not look professional. It took me three different full webpages before I finally created a design utilising powerpoint that I thought looked professional. I had to use a different software in order to actually make iWeb look professional.

I made use of the internet again for creating my digipak, I used a website called PicMonkey to edit my still images so that they were ready to be used. Again this meant that my work was largely reliant on the internet working which could be a negative if the macs had developed any problems. In addition to this I also made use of simple technology such as pencils and pens to create my front and back covers to my digipak.

Finally for my evaluation again I am making use of computers, both my mac in sixth form, and my computer at home with which I am using Sony Vegas to make this video.

Evaluation Question: What have you learned from your audience feedback

What have I learned from Peer Feedback

Alisha and I created a questionnaire each (due to us sharing a music video) which we sent out to gain feedback our video, my digipak and my homepage.

These were the questions asked:

Video:

In terms of my video my audience generally praised the narrative of the video. In particular the performance of James as the lead singer/guitarist and statue received universally positive feedback. We were also praised for our reference to doctor who, meaning that the audience appreciated the intertextual reference.

Of the question in Alisha’s separate questionnaire, 6 of the comments had praised our narrative. This is a relief as the narrative was the most important aspect too our video with the performance element not being as important to us. One person commented saying that they liked the twists in the video to make the narrative light hearted and that it was an interesting take on our stalking idea. Our editing was also described as smooth and non confusing.

From both questionnaires we have been told that it was well shot, although a recurring suggestion is that we use more tracking shots within out video. While tracking shots were something we attempted to do, we ultimately decided to leave them out due to the footage not looking effective on camera. This was the only main suggestion for improving our music video.

From this I’ve learned that our video was very popular however a lot of people would have preferred to have some more creative shots within the video.

Digipak:

As I worked on my digipak alone there was only one questionnaire that I used to source information from. I asked the question what was good about my digipak and what could be improved. One improvement suggested was to have one background for all of the photos as the photos did not share a common background. The other improvement was to add colour however this is not useful feedback as it goes against the idea I wanted for a folk rock themed digipak.

Webpage: 

All of the people who took part in my questionnaire said that my webpage was easy to navigate. It was praised for its colour scheme and consistent style however some criticisms were that it might be a good idea to have a preview of the song in MP3 format for those who are not able to use YouTube and that it could also be a good idea to include a latest news section which would save people having to go to there from the home page.

Final Home Page

Final Digipak

Final Music Video

This is our final video.

Band Identity Added

We added a band identity at the front and back of our video in order to make it look more like an actual music video as opposed to a fan made one.

Failed Sepia Tone Attempt

We tried using sepia tone but we decided against it as it did not look professional, it looked more like a brown filter as opposed to being an actual sepia tone. It didn't look right with the footage which was too dark and it paled the black curtains which we didn't want and all around looked dreadful, so we've decided against using it in our overall video.

13 - 2 -13 Editing Update

We have now synced all footage to the track and all of our shots are in place. Next we are planning to add in effects to give the video a bit more of a professional look. we are going to experiment with colour correction and we are going to attempt sepia tone to test how it will look.

We would like to try sepia tone as it is a main feature of my digipak and homepage. So I would like to include it across all three mediums.

Webpage so far

I have chosen to use the same sepia toned image from my digipak disc image as I wanted to reuse some images to give all three releases more synergy between them, with sepia tone being a key feature of them.

I have used the next gigs box to conceal half the fact that the image is cut off at Daniel's arm at the far right. I did however have to move the box over further as the end of the image was still visible.

Overcoming Editing Problem Video 1

Working on front cover of digipak

I decided that I wanted a hand drawn front and back cover. My design will feature James as the statue in the middle of a wooded area to echo the back cover with its bird, and the music video of James in the park. I chose this because it will create synergy between the music video and also allow me to keep the folkish style of drawn covers. While also keeping the focus of the digipak and video on the lead singer, which has been my plan since we identified the song as folk rock.

Editing 30-1-13

I have continued editing. So far I still need to space out my narrative towards the end. This is because at the moment I am unsure what to put in terms of performance nearer the middle of the song. So for now I have pieced together the rest of the narrative which I will space out nearer the end.

Peer Feedback (SMART Target)

I need to place more emphasis on the drums at the beginning, as the drums are the main feature during the opening few seconds of the song. This is why I need to place more emphasis on the drums during the opening moments of the play.

Started Editing

We began editing today (I am working in a pair with Alisha) and so far have managed to complete the first minute of our video in editing. We are planning to go over it in a second draft to add in effects and any additional quick shots that we may not have thought of using the first time.

One of our first issues when editing was that the ASD was far too slow and even though the clips themselves weren't that long they felt as though they were dragging and made the sequence feel longer than it actually was. In order to rectify this we first, shortened the clips to only include absolute must-have moments on camera. And we then added in additional shots as seen below:

This was originally only going to have the first and second shot on the timeline however we released that using only those two shots made the sequence feel much longer than it actually was. To rectify this we added in more shots after to keep the flow of the video going.

As seen in the above screen shot we also locked the audio track. This was important as we needed to stop the clips moving about the audio track and putting it out of sync. We have also trimmed off the last 30 seconds of the song as it is not music and is just one long sound effect which we do not need for our video. 

Webpage Designing

While I'm having some problems with both iWeb and Gimp (the two programs I'm attempting to use) I have managed to change the background I'm beginning to work on some custom text boxes for my webpage to give it a more professional look.

Digipak Images Editing

The first image i have edited today was taken while filming the narrative. I wanted to bring synergy between the video and the digipak. I have used sepia tone everywhere but James (the guitarist) which I am also going to do for the bands singer and drummer in their images.


This is the image that I am going to be scanning in next to edit to be the back cover. The back cover is going to have the song titles over the top of the image. Which too is going to be edited into sepia tone or an otherwise dusty colour. To prevent it from looking out of place i am going to edit the remaining photos to have some qualities of wood etchings. This is because I want to combine some typical and atypical qualities of Folk Rock digipaks.

I still have to take some images of both the singer and the drummer to edit over and to take the front cover image. One the images are taken I'm going to incorporate some qualities of wood etchings (e.g. harsher lines in the image, which I have done with James picture).

Webpage Development

I have been adapting the new homepage from my draft. So far I have had to put place holder boxes with guidelines for what to go where as I do not currently have all the images needed for my home page.

I have placed the links to the other pages there however I haven't started to add content to them just yet. I am planning to add our music video via YouTube in the bottom corner and format the text box to make it blend with the rest of the webpage. As well as adding in an image of the band.

Update 7/1/13

We have chosen our new date for filming. Which will be next tuesday, we decided to reshoot our performance as  we were not satisfied with the quality of the footage. Our performance will depend largely on if we are able to get an electric drum kit or not. If we cannot obtain the drum kit we are going to take our music video in a more tongue in cheek tone with them playing virtual instruments (rock band/guitar hero) so far we have decided to go against a lot of the typical conventions of folk rock.