Evaluation:Question 4

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

Research

We have used quite a lot of technology this year in media in preperation for this we did some practice with cameras, lip syncing and we made a short music video, however this was a controlled process, using Adobe Premiere Pro gave us some knowledge of the technology we were going to use.

 I used media 2.0 in the form of facebook and youtube, we used facebook in order to keep contact with our artist, this is also how we found our dancer. Using yahoo email she sent us a recording of her dancing so that we could decide if we wanted to include her. Facebook also allowed us to get feedback on our work. Social networking sites allowed us to have access to a wide audience and to create groups specifically for our media. Youtube is where we watched similar music videos and where we uploaded our own so that other people could watch it. The internet was my main source for my research in my blog, it gave me access to a wide range of materials that helped me when looking at my genre and other artists. We downloaded the song from Soundcloud which is where the artist uploads all his music this was easy to do and did not take very long. Soundcloud can be accessed by anyone and we found it through google.

In my blog i have used media such as prezi.com which i used to display my work in a different way. I also used slide share, this gave me the ability to upload my powerpoints onto my blog which was another way of displaying my research. These sights allow me to learn more about media and different, more interesting ways of displaying it.

Planning

I used a canon digital camera to photograph my artist for the digipak, as I am a photography student I already know how this works so I was in control. I used an auto focus setting so that the pictures were in focus and not blurry. I instructed the artist on how to sit,stand and pose as i had previously planned my digipak so i knew what i was capturing. Planning this allowed me to be very time efficeint and did not take very long, this meant i had enough time to edit my photos and create my promotional package.

In Photoshop i already have a few years of experience i decided i was going to layer photographs and change the opacity to have a movement effect. I opened the photos i planned to use and changed them all to black and white. From here i layered one on top of the other and changed their opacity to hard light. Then i changed the amount of opacity on each layer that was on top so that you could see the effect of movement. On top i added another effect of glowing edges to make it stand out more and give an added effect. I did the same on the back cover using pictures of the artist raising their arms. I added text on Photoshop and added my bar code by making one on the internet and adding it onto my digipak. The advertisement was made by increasing the saturation on the colour, in the shoot i took a series of photos of the artist turning slightly. By layering these photographs it gave an effect of him turning round. Layering and changing opacity levels allowed me to show this and this was the image i used on my advert.

Production

We have used Panasonic HD DV cameras, in order to know how to work this we did look at the instruction manual. This helped us when filming outdoors. And gave us more information on how to use the camera we did this to avoid any disruptions when we were out filming. It helped us to be more knowledgeable and efficient if something went wrong with the camera in the filming process.

On Amy's iphone we used the ipod to play the track to the artists and the dancer so that they could perform their parts, specifically we used the play and rewind buttons which was very simple as we have both used this device before. Doing this helped to be more convenient when filming the music video. The iphone also allowed us to keep in contact with the artist as it gave us access to facebook and other social devices.

Media on the computer that we have used includes Adobe Premiere Pro, based on the fact I did Media AS I have already learnt the basics of using Premiere, adding the effects was something we had to work out and our previous lip sync activity taught me how to do this aspect. To add the black and white effect we went on video effects, image control and then using the cursor we dragged the effect over the clip we wanted it on, we had to do this for every clip and then render the timeline in order for it to play. We did have some problems in the process, we had times when the video froze and the sound stopped however when we exported the video these problems didn't return. Unfortunately it just made the editing a bit more difficult.

Evaluation: Question 2

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

When preparing to make my music video for 'not concerned' I created a digipak and advert to advertise the artist and the song that he was due to release. I did various research tasks into the genre and similar artists to see what is usually done. From there I developed my own of what i thought would advertise my artist the best.

My music video is coherent and has a house style which mainly consists of black and white, this was a theme that ran through, we used black and white colours in our video and I also used black and white on my digipak which was however darker on my digipak compared to our music video, this is because we didn't want the music video to be too dark as it wouldn't work with the artist.. I did this as it gave a very urban, street feel which is an element that we wanted to capture. Having the theme running through means that it can all be a package.

I created a house style in my promotional package by using the same font, the font i used was 'Stencil STD' I used this font because it was bold and stood out on the dark background, after trying out multiple fonts this was the font i felt fitted with my genre the best. The effects I used were an overlay of images to make it look like a movement, on top of that was glowing edges to make the images stand out more. In the video there are 3 clips where there are different angles of the artist, this is similar for what the artist had to do when i shot the photos for the promotional package. The colours on my promotional package were a white font, a black and white colour for the main images and the inside cover had a grey colour as I reduced the opacity of the overlay. The mise en scene was specific for example the artist was instructed to wear a hoodie and his positions were also directed by us.

Stencil STD font that I used in my digipak

The grey colour that is on the inside panel of my digipak has the CMYK code of :
C= 67%
M=60%
Y=59%
K=42%

The black colour used throughout has a CMYK code of:
C=75%
M=68%
Y=67%
K=90%

The white colour also used throughout has a CMYK code of:
C=0%
M=0%
Y=0%
K=0%

Our video contains a shot of the artist with his back to the camera with his hood up, this links to the back cover of my digipak as it was a shot that was featured, this can help the audience relate the video to my digipak.

The use of the bridge in our music links to my advertisement which features a bridge. My digipak has links to the music video throughout. This makes it seem more like a package and fits everything together.


Although my video does not really look like my digipak, this is because i have a glowing edges effect on my digipak which is what gave the white edges. I did this to make the digipak more interesting and so that the moving effect showed better. This effect would not have worked on my video. The main way that my digipak links to my video is through mise en scene such as locations that we used and the outfit that the artist wore. Hopefully the audience will be able to link this and see it as a whole promotional package.



















We used naturalistic lighting throughout, this is because we wanted it to be fairly redundant and as we were shooting in open spaces it looked better and more natural. We wanted the artist to fit in with the surroundings if we had used artificial lighting it would not have worked as well. The end shot on our video is lighter than the rest we did this by setting the brightness on the camera higher because we liked the effect that it gave. Using naturalistic lighting on my digipak was not a major decision because I had planned to use black and white effects anyway so light wasn't as important.

I asked a male and a female from our target audience what they thought of the music video and the promotional package as a whole? Whether they thought it fit with the genre? and whether they thought it was aimed at their target audience?

Female
I like the promotional package as a whole, I think the fact that the video and the album cover are both black and white makes them look like a whole package. I especially like the effect of movement on the album cover. The use of the hoody on the video, album and advert links them all together and show they belong together even though the album is slightly darker. I think it is aimed at the teenager, young adult age but in my opinion it does suit males more than females.
Charlotte Morgan, 18

Male

I like rap music and i did like the video, i like the fact that it looks like the 99 problems video and i like the speed of the video. As a whole package i think it fits together well. The same writing is used throughout and the same colours. Adding a little more colour to the advert i think was a good thing as it attracts more attention. I like the use of the hoody to help link it all together. I can tell the genre from looking at the album, this helped me identify the genre to begin with. I think it suits the target audience of young adult.
Michael Clarke ,17

Overall I think that I have created a promotional package that is coherent and has a constant house style throughout. My target audience could tell who the desired target audience was although some feedback told me it was aimed more toward males. Although I believe my constant style throughout and the elements that linked it all together can be seen and are aimed towards my target audience. However some people may have trouble linking it as i have not used the exact same effects. Also some people may think that the digipak is too dark, i took this into considerationhowever i liked the effect and decided to keep it.