Evaluation Question 4

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

I used InDesign in my first yr of media, so it improved my technological skills ready for year two, some of its icons and tools are similar to that of photoshop. Photoshop i used in both years of my meda course, i improved large amounts from the first time of using it lat year to this year in making my digipak. it enabled me to make a good final product of both the digipak and magazine advertisement.


I used Celtx in the plannig stages of my music video, it is a programme used to make a storyboard, you scan your images in, you then write underneath what would be happening in each scene, this makes it easier when actually filming your video as all your ideas are drafted into a storyboard. After Effects, this programme i used within two parts of my video, the part where the girl writes the words 'i love you' on a window and i also used this programme when i used the kaleidoscope effect. These were two parts of my video that people commented on and said were expecially good. The obvious bit of technology which helped me was Premiere pro, this was the programme which i used to help me construct my film. It allowed me to add differnt effts and cut my footage so that it came together as a music video.


Blogger is an online site where people blog how they are getting on with a project, their work, and the process they are taking. It allows people to comment giving their opinions, this is what i used it for, i posted my video up here and got feedback, it was nice to see what people thought as without people seeing your work it gives you no reason ot be proud.


I used wikipedia in the research part of my A2 course, I had to research the bands music i wanted to use, i also used it in the construction of my digipak, i had to get the track listings for the album i re-created.


I used youtube also in the research part, when i was analysing videos to see the differnt techniques differnt people used and also so i could take into concideration how people use mise-en-scene, location and differnt shots to flatter their video.




After Ihad finished my video I decided to post it onto facebook so that a larger group of people could view it and so that i could get even more feedback. It helped me out in the evaluation stages of my media.

Evaluation Question 3

We held a presentation evening for our music video promos, I gave out a questionnaire to the parents and students that viewed it, the results came out quite clearly, it would have been a little better if i had collected a larger amount of results to give a more certain outcome. Overall the audience who watched my music video thought that my music video was easy to understand, the lip sync worked well, the transitions between shots were good. It seemed that some people thought that the shots came and went too quickly, although this was my intended aim. Where people were able to add detail to their answers some positive feedback i got was that,:
The lips
The couple talking
Teddies heart pumping
Writing on the window
Although someone did say that the fast snappy shots gave the efffect that it was a shaky camera.

Evaluation Question 2

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

Hello, I’m Meeghan.
This is my music video to’ First love by the Maccabees’, its from their first album named ‘colour it in’. They are an indie band formed in Brighton. They produce exciting, quirky songs with simple yet funny lyrics which are often very catchy.
Intertextual reference in something which is rare within music videos, I wanted the start of my video to be effect and immediately grab the audience, with my remake of a famous scene from when harry met sally I think it makes for a strong beginning.
The Maccabees are made up of four men, although I knew this I did not want to include a band in my video, instead I used a women to sing the lyrics as I thought this would be controversial and would fit in well with the quirkiness of the band. I gave her red lip colour so that the audience would be focused on her lips. And used a close up shot to further highlight the words she was singing.
The main theme and story of my video was that the different shots mirrored what was said in the lyrics, for example when it says ‘do you miss home?’ lots of different shots of houses and forms of homes flash up. With the words ‘Are you cool?’, a boy comes up smoking and acting in a what that to the viewers they can see he is not cool, a very sarcastic part to my video.
I wanted my music video to have an upbeat tone to it so I used the fade to black/white effect in between shots to give the effect that they were flashing up.
My digipak was something which I found fun to make, but difficult as it had to match up together with the video and my magazine advertisement. Although the Maccabees are a band in their mid 20s who attract 15-30 yr olds of both sexes, I still decided to go with the theme of a pink/peach colour. It went well with the theme of love and also went well with the colour of my image which I used on the front of my digipak, this was an image of the girl who mimed in my video, this helped tie the two together. I then used an image of the back of her head as the back cover of the digipak, quite a creative idea if I do say so myself. The cd and cd holder were basically a mirror of one another, I made it look like the magnifying glass had blown up the girls smile.

Back to my video, I used a quite a few effects within my video, including, colour changers, the kaleidoscope effect, I also changed the brightness and contrast on many scenes within my video. I created the effect of the girl writing on the window in after effects, I had to choose the right timing and the correct direction to write the words as she moved her hand. It went well with the laid back randomness of both the band and their lyrics.
I had designed my magazine advertisement before I had started the digipak, I knew that I wanted it to be quite simple and plain. It took me three attempts for me to get to my final piece that I was happy with. MY first attempt looked to feminine and did not have the look of an advertisement more a childish poster. My second draft was too dark and looked quite boring, the colours I used did not match that of my music promo. My final advertisement used the image of the women who mimed in my video, tying the two together, I gave it a white background to keep it simple. I then went onto use the same text in the digipak, I also edited the image with the same ‘cutout’ effect.
Overall I think I reached the desired effect which I wanted, my music promo, digipak and advertisement are clearly linked with the same style. MY bands style and genre are well suited to my video, with the upbeat edits keeping the audience intrigued and the strong theme of symmetry shown through the different ages of love.

Evaluation Question 1

Programmes I used

Celtx
After Effects
Photoshop

Premiere pro

Creating my Digi pak

To the left is my original image which i stared with, after putting a cutout effect and brightening the picture i came out with the final picture as seen on the right. This was the background image used on the front cover of my digipak.




Above is the image i started out with for my back cover of my digipak. Firstly i cropped it down to the required size, it had to line up with the front of my digipak as i wanted it to look like the front and back of someones head, as pictured below. There was little colour and texture to this image so i found it difficlut to get the correct colour below i have shown the differnt colours, hightlights and effects which i put onto the picture so try and make it seem like the same style as the front cover. Eventually i achieved the final back cover for my digipak as pictured above on the right.








For my first and second pullouts to my digipak these were the origina images i had, for these it was simple, i just put the cutout effect onto them, the same as what I did for the back and front cover, but to the image on the left i used the paintbrush tool to write 'Colour it in'. these images both turned out a pinkish colour and although pink is a stereotypical colour for girls it was pulled off as a unisex colour when added to these images.





For my pull out 'Thank you' page I wanted to finally present the band seeing as they had not been mentioned or seen throughtout the video. These were the image i used.

Final Magazine advertisment

This is my final magazine advertisment after three attempts. I have finally achieved the look that i want, it is simple and quite minimalistic. It has a theme and style which runs with the rest of my digipak and music promo.

Final Digi pak

This is my final digipak, (from right to left) the pull out, back and front.
1st pull out, middle and 2nd pull out.
Just above is how my CD will look.

Creating my magazine advertisement

When creating my magazine advertisement I brought a large varieties of magazines so that i could research the style that people normally go for when creating one of these.

I found that the overall look was quite plan in a lot of cases, with this in mind i tried attempted to create my advertisement, below is my first draft.

This did not turn out how i had imagined and i some how could not get it to pull together and look like an advertisement, although i did like the way i had designed the album name 'Colour it in'

Below is my second draft of my advertisement, i liked the style of writting in this one and felt that it looked a lot more like a magazine advertisement but i realised that the colour i had chosen for the background would be more attracted to girls then to boys and that was not what i wanted to achieve. With both my drafts i decided to push them together and attempt my final magazine advertisement.

My contribution to other groups

As well as filming and creating my own music video i helped one of my class members in his video. I played the lead role in his film, in which we spent on one a occasion a full school day filming, not only did i star in his film i also gave him advice when i thought appropriate, i shared my ideas with him to hopefully give him a better final piece. 

Below is  a link to his film, where you can view the contribution i made to his film. 

http://joshyyyc911.blogspot.com/

Questionnaire

I put together a questionnaire for the audience that viewed my music video, the aim of this was to help me with my overall analysis and evaluation.

Questionnaire for First Love by the Maccabees

1.H

Final Film

This is my final cut of my music promo for 'First Love by The Maccabees'

Please comment below, it would be much appreciated.

Cast

This is Sylvia and George, the location was their own house, and i tried to set it up so it looked similar to that of 'When harry met Sally'. they are dressed in their own clothes, this was to make it natural so that they were able to talk freely.











This is Imogen and Frankie, they are year seven sutdents that I used so that there was a variety of age groups to show love. They are dressed in their uniform to indicate their age.









This is Ellie, i used her to mime, this was quite controversial as the band 'The Maccabees', is made up of four boys.

This is Antony, he was dressed in his own clothes and i put him against a dark room so the eye would not move from him, i wanted all the attention on him. There is a sarcastic feel to this part of the film, 'Are you cool', because, he is not kool, he just thinks he is cool.

This is Romillie, she was used to show symmetry, and was again set against a black background so that the attention was only foccused on her.

This is Broden, she features alot throghout my film. In this scene she is the bride featured in the 'Let's get married' section.

This is Kay and Sean, they were used to show sexual love.

Again, this is Broden, i placed her in a field looking lost/confused/ sad to show 'Alone' i then flipped this clip horizontally.

This is Josh, and again Kay. They were used when the couple go to hug and then the boy dissappears and the girl in then 'Alone' Josh is a former A2 media student.

This is Brook, he is a former A2 media student. He provided the costume f0r this part.

This is me, i managed to film this myself, by standing infront of special stage lights and holding the magnifying glass against my face whilst filming with the other hand.

This is Ellie, we filmed this in my bedroom up against my window.

This is Ellie and Josh they were used in the bedroom part, with the slpit screen. Both of these were filmed in their own bedrooms.

This is me, i filmed this alone by setting up the camera on a tripod and with the use of special studio lights i got the required effect.

This is Broden and Murray the teenage couple used in my film. These parts were set in a woods/field.