FAREWELL BLOG :-(

We hope you have enjoyed looking at out blog and the journey we went through creating our media products

Ciara, Lauren, Hannah & Aaron

EVALUATION: Ciara's question 4

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

Below is a video of me talking through various new media technologies that we used throughout the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages.

New media technologies mentioned:

Blogger:

• stored our reaserch
• looked at previous years work
• posted out final products

Prezzi:

• make presentations on Goodwins theory
• presentation for evaluation 2

Soundcloud:

• reaserch unsigned artists
• posted our mini pitches

youtube:

• inspiration
• posted our audience feedback videos
• posted final music video

Instagram:

• research more about our artists (their following etc)

Final cut pro:

• animatic
• edited our music video

Adobe premier pro:

• develop our editing and transitions

Cannon DSLR camera:

• filmed the video footage
• took pictures for digipack and magazine cover

Adobe photoshop:

• edit digipack pictires
• edit magazine cover

Below are logos for the new media technologies I used:

Overall I used new media technologies throughout various stages of making my three media products. They all contributed and helped me professional looking products.

EVALUATION: Ciara's question 3

What have you learnt form your audience feedback?

Audience feedback on our music video:

Below is a video of audience feedback form our music video draft:

Why it was useful:

This audience feedback was useful as it was from one person who was our typical target audience in terms of the age range and another person who was not our typical target audience. This allowed us to get a wide variety of information and make adjustments to our music video to not only improve it but also make it appealing to a wider variety of audiences.  

Some of the changes we applied:

• we removed any low quality footage 
• stabilised some clips 
• changed some of the mid shots of the artists to close ups
• added more professional effects
• replaced the footage of london used in the opening line to footage of the artists

What we learnt:

• From this audience feedback we learnt how vital the opening line of the song was hence the reason we replaced it with the artist rather than footage of London.
• We also picked up on the different quality of footage that we had and realised how important it was that all footage used in the final product was of high quality and the best it could be.
• through this audience feedback we also realised we could of filmed more footage of the artists that varied in shots and camera angles during the production stage; however through pre production we developed out editing skills and were able to make adjustments from mid shots to closeups.

Audience feedback on our digipack:

Below is a video of audience feedback for our CD cover on our digipack:

Why it was useful:

This audience feedback was useful as we were struggling with adding text that tied in with the music video onto the plain white board in the background. We found it challenging to make it look realistic as we knew it was done through editing however audience feedback gave us an outsiders opinion.

Some of the changes we applied:

• the saturation of the graffiti print
• where we placed the graffiti
• we swapped the song name and the artists, putting more emphasis on the artists

What we learnt:

• from various audience feedback we learnt the importance of the artist name over the title of the song. By changing this it gave the CD cover a much more professional finish.
• We also learnt how to get the right balance in saturation of the graffiti to make it stand out but also allow the artists be the main focus.

Through audience feedback we made the changes suggests and produced the CD cover shown below: 

Audience feedback on our magazine cover:

We received audience feedback for our magazine advert from someone who would be a typical target audience member in termes of age and gender.

What we learnt:

This audience feedback was useful as we were struggling as a group to decide on the backdrop of the photo. Originally the backdrop looked quite rural as there were trees in the background however after audience feedback we changes this through editing and decided to remove the trees, make it white and add the text for the cover.

Overall we learnt a lot from our audience feedback which allowed us to adapt and make changes to all three of our media products, giving them a more real and professional finish.

EVALUATION: Ciara's question 2

EVALUATION: Ciara's question 1

FINAL PRODUCT: MAGAZINE ADVERT

Magazine Advert for the album Fund Fetish by Semz&Zino

FINAL PRODUCT: DIGIPAK

Digipak for the album Fund Fetish by Semz&Zino

FINAL PRODUCT: MUSIC VIDEO

Group 6 (Music Video) A2 Media

Fund Fetish by Semz&Zino

PRODUCTION: Behind the scenes

These behind the scene videos , show our group collectively having a go filming for our music video. 

It includes shots of the two main boy characters 'semz and zino' taking the two main girl characters on a date to a bowling alley/ arcade. 

We used the colour scheme red, black and white in order to create a synegisitc element.  

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK: Construction of music video

RESEARCH AND PLANNING: PITCH AND STORYBOARD FEEDBACK

CONSTRUCTION: Behind the scenes : Digipak picture taking

We took pictures in every location we shot at, in order to get as many as we could so that we would have a successful digipak.

However, the shots we took at the bowling alley were the least successful as we had some lighting issues. This is evident in the pictures of 'zino' and the blonde female character , because his dark complexion was not suited to the lighting as it was quite dim. Furthermore, the pictures we did take the lighting looked good on the female but not the male.

Although, the other shots we got at the graffiti background and with the car were ultimately successful.

CONSTRUCTION: Making our Digipak front cover: Deciding on the background

This is the initial editing of the billboard in the background - we took away the writing that was there and replaced it with the name of our artists and album name.

We started with the editing with the name of the album which is also the single the song is surrounded  on  as the main focus. However , we realised it looked best with the artists names as the main focus because it would be the artists first album and they need to gain the best promotion.

CONSTRUCTION: magazine advert progression

These were our first drafts of our magazine adverts, we felt like the image was too crowded with long lines of text which made the image less powerful and captivating.

The text of Semz and Zino were not bold enough and looked weak , however we wanted them to look powerful and effective in conveying the rappers to have dominance. This is the effect we wanted the text of their names to give, so we decided to change this.

In order for the names to dominate we decided we had to take away the long lines of text , by doing this we believed only using short punchy lines it made the advert more effective and more attractive.

We also thought in order to make it more realistic it was key to add all various types of media platforms in which their music and profiles are accessible.

Because of these things we redrafted and came up with this.

This is our Magazine advert.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK: how it shaped our product

Generally the use of audience feedback was helpful in shaping our products as it guided us towards bettering our final products.

This was done through our final draft feedback aswell as digipak cover and magazine advert feedback.

Our digipak cover was the most vital audience feedback we got , we spent alot of vital time deciding wether we wanted the graffiti in the background or not and when we posed the question to our audience the majority voted in favour for it. As a result , it lead to syngery throughout as well as a professional final product.

We also used this advice from our final draft in order to enforce a music video which conformed to it's genre and look professional.

We discovered that we need to make the cuts quicker in order to bring one of the characters forward,  so that the audience see our video as an uptempo , fast paced new and upcoming rap video.

We then used this advice and implimented it throughout the whole of our music video.

RESEARCH: Audience Feedback: DigiPak

In this case we had already had some feedback from an audience perspective , once we had came up with 3 prominent drafts of background for the front of our digipaks. We had some people analyse which one they thought would be best.

They thought, that although the simple black and white text was good , the graffiti covering the whole of the background was too much. Overall , the background that had a faded bit of grafiti was the best as it used synergistic elements from the video itself but also captivated the audience as there is a pop of colour.

PRODUCTION: ROUGH CUT - FEEDBACK

We used this advice in order to make improvements to our final product.

we discovered that we need to make the cuts the quicker in order to match the genre , and cut the          clips in order to  bring one of the characters forwards. So that the audience see our video as an uptempo, fast paced new and upcoming uk rap video.

We tried to then filter this continually throughout the whole of our video.

PLANNING: shot list

This price of pre production planning made the production stage (filming) go a lot smoother on the day it also ensured we had enough footage and our music video matched our animatic.

PLANNING: mood board

This is a mood board for the type of scenes we feel would fit our music video. The images given are from examples of contemporary music videos.

PLANNING: costume , concept , examples

We decided to follow Lauren's music video concept , therefore these follow:

Locations:

• party
• date night
• london at night 
• Driving around in a 'nice car'

(conveying a certain type of lifestyle)

Characters:

• two central boys
• two central girls
• 'temptation' characters
• extras

Costumes:

• colour code of black red and white on each character

The main message of the video is to convey how in this day and age, it is difficult to be involved in a relationships when there is other people that put it on a plate and often ruin relationships because they can. Although it is the party involved in the relationship that is to fault, it shows how easy it is to get caught up and make these stupid decisions which we later realise wont get us what we want and love.