Evaluation (Outline)

Question 1. In what ways does your media product use. develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Question 2. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?


Question 4. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Introduction 
As part of the A2 level  media coursework we created a music video that was non liner narrative. We also created a digipak and a magazine for the music video that we made. As a group of three we all contributed to all of the main tasks of producing these products.
Once we had decided the song that we are going to use to product the music video we wrote down possible ideas that connect with the song choice 'Maybe tomorrow - Stereophonics'
We decided to use some of the ideas that were used in the original music video such as tracking shots and a studio take.
I am going to evaluate the product that the group created in A2 using 4 questions which I am going to answer.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation process?
We used the new media technologies in the contruction of the music video, magazine advert and the digipak.
To make the treatment we used Prezi which is a website where you can create interactive presentations. This was a useful website to display the treatment because it allows the use to scroll through the presentation and it allowed us to add images of the locations. It also helped us create the treatment more like a time line so people know how the music is going to be set up.

This is a screenshot of prezi.com
The website has lots of tools that you can you to enhance the presentation. I inserted images that I took of the locations and I also used a screenshot of the location using googles street view service.

To edit the music video we used the latest version of Final Cut Pro on 13" MacBooks. Final cut is one of the most advance video editing software around

To produce the digipak we used photoshop because it has a huge range of different features.

Digipak Production

We found a template for a 6 panel  digipak with the measurements for each panel of the digipak. We are going to use the template in Photoshop and add our own content.

Costume, Props and Semiotics

This is the original music video from stereo phonics that I analysed. I explained that costumes and the props that they have used.












This is a photo from our music video and I have analysed the costume and props that we have used in the studio footage.



Semiotics 

Semioticians classify signs or sign systems in relation to the way they are transmitted. This process of carrying meaning depends on the use of codes that may be the individual sounds or letters that humans use to form words, the body movements they make to show attitude or emotion, or even something as general as the clothes they wear. 

Source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics] 

We used some footage of clouds for the time lapse in the music video. We used it to show the audience that time is passing. We sped the video up so we see the clouds moving across the sky. The main music video cuts to the footage of the clouds for a few seconds and then it cuts back to the video in the studio. 

Codes and Conventions of Digipaks

We reached digipaks to find out what the codes and conventions are of digipaks. Below is a list of the codes and conventions:

• The record company name appears somewhere on the digipak
• The artist name appears on the digipak
• A Barcode normally appears on the back cover of the digipak
• The album name appears on the front cover
• The digipak will have album artwork on it 
• Most digipaks are made from card and have a plastic disc tray 
• The track listing and track times normally appears on the back cover
• An order code sometimes appears on the spine of the digipak
• The record company logo and website appear on the back

Codes and Conventions of a magazine advertisement for Music Albums

We researched magazine adverts for albums before we created our own. I researched what the codes and conventions were of magazine adverts:

• The band/artist will appear on the advert 
• The artist name will appear on the adverts 
• Album artwork will appear somewhere on the advert  
• The album name will be on the advert 
• The band logo  normally appears on the advert
• The music company logo will be displayed on the advert 
• The realise date will almost always appear on the advert normally near the bottom 
• The CD cover will also be displayed on the advert
• It will have its own colour scheme that doesn't reflect the magazines own colour scheme
• Some have a catchy tag line

Once we looked at the codes and conventions of magazine adverts we then looked at an advert in a magazine at a few adverts. I then analysed a few of the magazine adverts and pointing out all the codes and conventions that have been used.
(Click on the image to make it bigger)

Studio Setup photos

We used a studio to shoot the music video footage. We used different equipment to set it up such as a HD camera and bright lighting. 

This is the camera that we used to shoot the studio footage. We attached the camera to a track so we could move the camera left and right easily and it makes it look more professional. We used the black curtain for the background to make it look more studio like.  

These are the lights we used for the studio recording of the music video. We set them up behind the person singing to light him up.

We used different lighting facing the guitarist so he looks better on camera. 

This is the track we used to mount the tripod so we could do the tracking shots. We used this to make it smooth and so that we could track easily and in the original music video they use tracking shots and we liked the effect so we used it in ours We used a lot of tracking shots for the studio take for the music video so the track was very useful to us. 

This is the set up of the studio with the lighting, camera, track and black screen.

We also used a Jib to get high and low angle shots for the music video.  

This is how the studio shoot looks from the position of the camera track.

We used spotify to play the music track in the background to help with lip syncing

Planning

Once we decided the music track we picked the location of where we are going to film the music video. We had a shooting schedule where we were all equipment was available to us and when the locations were available to us.
The locations we are going to use are Wem Townhall video studio where they have all the equipment and the black studio screen.  The second location that we are going to use is the new building development in Wem. We chose to use this location because it looks modern and clean which is the effect that we wanted.
We got there permission to film at the locations and we booked a time where we could film when there was no one around and no cars there.