Candidate Information

Lauren Simmons

6098 

Wilmington Grammar School for Girls

61119

My Final Products

These are our final products:

Front Cover, Back Cover, and Spine:


CD Disk:

Inside Cover:

Behind CD Cover:

Magazine Advert:

Evaluation Question 4

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

                  

This question is presented using Slide-share. 

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?


Firstly when trying to obtain feedback of my music video, I asked close friends and family members to look at my video, and tell me what they liked, didn't like, and what they thought I could do to improve my video.

I asked my friends to record there results on a video player, and send it to me so I could watch it and put it on my blog. My feedback is shown in the video below:




I then did the same but with my ancillary task:

I have gained a lot of valuable feedback from these video recordings and can develop them further with the additional feedback I have also received. 

I also posted a link to my music video on Facebook below and asked people if they could post comments on what they thought about my music video, what they liked, what they disliked, and what they thought needed to be improved. Shown below is the link I posted:

These were the results I received:

For my ancillary task I took made a voki from my younger brother and sisters feedback. I wanted to ask my brother and sister as they are around the age of my target audience (13-15) and felt that their feedback would be extremely useful into understanding how people of that age would interpret our video. The results are shown below:

My brother                                                   My sister

Response to my feedback

I have gained a lot of successful, qualitative data, which will be extremely helpful when assessing my feedback to see what my audience liked, disliked, and what they thought could be improved throughout all of my products. There were a lot of similar answers and the following are what came up when asking my audience about all of my media products.

Feedback to my music video:

The story line was a large factor which was discussed a lot when obtaining my feedback. The use of homosexuality was a good effective twist which made it much more interesting to watch, than just watching a 'typical' love story music video. This is something we agree with as we largely tried to make the story line interesting and out of the ordinary.

Camera angles and shots was also another aspect which was discussed. Many of my audience found the different range of shots and angles used was very effective and made the video much more interesting to watch.

As you can see from the photo above one particular shot that was commented on was the shot used from Jessie's point of view when she goes to meet Alice at the bench. Our camera angles and shots were something we took great focus in as we wanted to capture our actresses from the right point of view to portray emotion well.

Quality of filming was a large downfall of our video, and many of our audience picked up on this. Many people found that the camera was very 'jolty' and 'static' at times which led to an unprofessional looking shot or scene. We realised this in our own filming, and tried to edit parts out that we could so you could not notice this. However there was not much we could do when filming as we did not have an extremely professional camera or stand, and we were new to the whole aspect so were not familiar or skilled in keeping a still and steady hand when filming.

The acting was the last thing that was commented on in my music video. Much of my feedback commented that at times Alice did not play the part well enough, and was not convincing in what she was trying to do. Although we noticed this as well, there was not much she could do. This was because Alice was not a professional actress and as she had volunteered her own time to be part of our music video we were grateful for the acting that she did do.

Feedback to my ancillary tasks:

The colour scheme was a large factor that all of my audience thought was successful. They found that the use of black and white running throughout the CD cover and the magazine advert was really effective as it linked all of the products together in a subtle way. They also liked how the colouring made it very simple and also portrayed the emotion and feeling from the music video as black is often linked to death, and depression. They thought the use of the red 'A' was very clever as it gave a slight colour to the front cover without 'over doing it' which made it look much more professional and less cluttered. Overall, the colours chosen and the colour scheming of my ancillary task had very positive reviews.

The model was another aspect a lot of my audience picked up on. All of my audience thought that the poses of Alice were very professional, and that she portrayed the sad and depressed emotion very well.They also liked the use of make-up running down her face on the back cover photo and the magazine advert, as this adds to the sadness of the photo. 

The layout was commented on a lot throughout my feedback process. Many of my audience felt the layout was simple yet effective, and it was not cluttered at all, which made it look professional and as the layout is simple, it allows the audience to focus on the photo, title, and name of the artist.

The effects were an aspect which was commented on. From my feedback, a lot of my audience felt that particularly on the magazine advert that it was slightly boring and there were not a lot of features on it. They liked the layout of the advert however only the photo and the title caught their attention, and this is not successful when we are trying to advertise and sell a product. To overcome this, if we were to do it again we could add other features such as talking about other tracks on the album, and maybe adding more photos of Alice from the video. Many of my audience felt we had created a professional and successful CD cover which included well taken photos of Alice, portraying what the video was about, and the front cover was simple yet effective, and was not overly cluttered. 

The font was the last thing which was commented on by my feedback audience. Many of 
my audience liked my font as they felt it was spread out evenly, and not 'bunched up' on the page, and not cluttered. However one member felt that the font was too thin and too small. To overcome this problem we could always ad a bold outline to the title and name of the artist to make it more interesting, or simply just make the font thicker.

Overall, I have gained extremely useful feedback which has pointed out our downfalls and what we need to do to improve them, whilst also showing what we have done well and where we have succeeded.

Evaluation Question 2

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

To make a professional and relevant ancillary task, it was essential that I linked it to my main product so there was continuity running throughout both products. Without doing this my two different tasks would not have correlated and would have been seen as unrelated products.
We looked at real media products and how they related to their ancillary task. I will use Rihanna as my example:




This is the video I have looked at to compare my product to a real media product and how they have linked Rihanna has linked her music video to her other media products.


I have used a slide point to present the answer to this question:




The picture below shows how we have linked our magazine advert to our disc and album cover. From the highlighted parts of the picture it shows that we have used the same 'SONY MUSIC' to link the products together to show that they have been made by the same company. We have also made sure to link the use of the fonts together, as this means all of the different products correlate due to the similarity of the fonts. This is also the same for the colour scheme of all of our products, as we have made sure to use the black white and red colours throughout to familiarise the audience with the product. We also made sure that on the back cover of the CD, to put the single 'Perfect' as the top and main song. This allowed us to promote the song more and shows that the album's main hit is the song which we have produced our music video on. This shows a major and obvious link.



The use of the hair is one aspect we continued to relate from our main produt to our ancillary task. We decided to keep the style of the hair the same throughout the video, which was slightly messy, and unkept, however just done and natural. By doing this it allowed us to show a similarity from the video to the rest of the ancillary products.

The use of make up was another factor which we kept similar. In the video Alice has very dark eye make up throughout and this is similar to the front cover of the CD as you can see above. In the magazine advert we wanted the make up to be similar to the video however in a different way. We decided to do this by linking the magazine advert by having her make up running down her face, and this is similar to the most important scene in the video where Alice is laying in the bath with make up run all down her face. We felt that the use of make up was very important to link the main product to our ancillary products.

The body language used was also another important aspect which we used to relate our main product to our ancillary tasks. In the main video we have used a similar theme of Alice pushing her hair back out of her face whenever she was upset, or distressed, as to portray that she couldn't deal with her surroundings and herself, and was getting more and more frustrated. To link this with our ancillary task, in the magazine advert we decided to have Alice with her pulling her hair back from her face. This again creates the feeling of stress and frustration which is what we wanted to portray in the video.

Evaluation Question 1

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


Throughout my project I have continously linked back to real media products to give me inspiration, direction, and something to base my own products around. I did exstensive research on real media products to gain a sense of professionalism and realism, and much of this research was based on Youtube and Google.
To compare how my product challenges forms and conventions of real media I went back to my first research where I searched a range of music videos on youtube to gain ideas of what I wanted to include in my own video.







These music videos successfully correlate with my own music video and were good examples to use, as they had the same tone of depression, sadness, and loneliness. This is shown in the videos above as the videos include scenes of characters crying, and the use of many of the artists eye-make up is good to portray sadness and depression as black is often linked to this colour. The following areas is what I wanted to portray in my music video. The artists also had a similar look to what I wanted my actress to look like which made it very successful to compare these videos.



In these examples below I have compared real media products to my own to show the similarities between the different videos.

From this example you can see I have based a lot of my own product around research I have found of artists eyes. I felt this was very necessary as in the professional videos a lot of emotion is conveyed through the use of the artists eyes, and I could use this in my own video with Alice. The bottom video shows Avril Lavigne with a lot of dark, heavy, eye make up on which is also something I incorporated into my own video as Alice wears a large amount of black eyeshadow throughout the video.

 

I also looked at close up shots a lot in my video. From looking at research I realised this was an effective shot to use to portray emotion successfully as it very clearly captures the whole artists expression on their face. I successfully used this shot throughout my video and I feel it largely helped to portray how different characters were feeling throughout the film, and using close up shots of Alice looking down shows hopelessness and how she has given up, which is something we showed a lot throughout the film.

 

 

Throughout the whole researching, planning, filming, and editing process of my film I made sure to look at the official video to see Pink's interpretation of the film. It also helped me give inspiration for my own storyline and how I should portray my main character.

 

 

As you can see from these comparison photos our video has many similar scenes to the real video, and although we did not want to replicate the official video, we wanted the storyline to be similar, and in this way we have succeeded. We have included familiar scenes such as a scene in the bath where she is trying to commit suicide, and a scene in the mirror where she is trying to change her appearance. We have also used many extreme close up shots of Alice, especially of her eyes, and this is something that was also used a lot in the official video.

 



 



Shown below is a video created to show more clearly how I took ideas from real products to develop my own (including how I tried to challenge convention).
 

 

 

Here I have summarised everything from this evaluation question and used 'Word It Out' to make a word cloud to show my brain storms and ideas throughout my whole project, including evaluation.

 

  

The Video

Our final video is shown below:

Editing the Music Video

After filming everything we needed, making sure all the shots we had were successful, we then needed to edit the film, put all different scenes together, to come out with our final product. This was probably our most difficult task throughout our whole project as we not only had to make sure that all scenes linked together well, but had to make sure it went well with the timing of the song and the correct scenes were being shown when particular lyrics were being sung.
 
To help us along this process we constantly referred back to our timelines, and this was very useful in helping us direct through the editing of our video.

We made sure to put the change of scenes in the right place

 

 

We firstly decided to edit the music. We started by using the fade technique so that the song built up and became clearer to hear and to keep conituity we used this at the start of the song as well.
For our opening shot we decided to use a pan shot, which meant that it could allow an establishing shot. We used this when the music started playing to introduce the song as well as making us fimilar with the opening location.

 

 

 

 

Due to the sheer amount of videos that we had saved, to make the process easier, quicker, and less confusing, we decided to rename the videos. For example, 'pan shot of bathroom' so we could know what shot or scene they were under.

 

 

 

Every shot we have filmed has sound in the background from us directing Alice and telling her what to do. As we didn't want this sound to be included in the song we had to remove or destroy the link. This allowed us to delete the sound to each video, allowing only the song to be heard.

 

 

 

Due to consistent editing, we were able to learn techniques to help create a better quality video, especially in learning how to make it flow well and link easily. One thing which vastly improved this was reducing the play speed of clips, which allowed an image to be held on the screen for longer. When using extreme close up shots this was beneficial as some of the shots would be quite shaky, and in this way we could make them still. We used this editing skill to create suspense especially with the scene where Alice is about to take pills. This technique is shown in two videos below.

 

 

 

 

We made sure throughout the video to use cuts or cross fades to differ from each clip, as this made the video much more interesting to watch as well as using a professional way to swap between each scene.  Shown below is an example of an effective use of cross fade. At this point in the video, the story completely changes from Alice in the bathroom to the scene where she tells her friend that she is in love with her. We have changed from the bathroom scene into the next scene by using a cross fade from black into the next scene. This fits extremely well with the music as well as transitioning effectively.

 

 

 

The use of the cross fade also allows great change from scene to scene, as it allows successful transitions from one shot to another. This is shown in the picture below, as we are shown the transition between two different shots - mid shot to the side and a birds eye view.





 

 

 

 

We have used a range of cross fades throughout our video

 



 

 

 

 

Although the use of cross fades is very successful it means that changing the scene happens at quite a slow pace. This is what we wanted for sme scene changes however for others we wanted a more fast cut change and so for this we used a quick cut. These were aminly used when the song is more fast paced and speeds up. By using the quick cutting tool we are able to present Alice's state of mind through the fast paced filming as it portrays urgency.

 

 

 

 

Due to all of our filming and the exstensive range of it, there were some videos which did not have the same lighting as the rest of the other clips, and this made it hard to keep continuity. Shown below is an example of this.

 

 

 

 

From this example you can see the shot above is too bright, and so we needed to edit this to the same colour tone as the other videos. We did this by using the 'grey scale effect' however did not use full grey scale as this was too dark but instead used 'half and half grey scale effect'.



 

 

 

 

This effect worked well and was able to make the scene darker so we could use it in our final video, as it kept conituity. It was also easy to apply as the location we used did not have much colour in it so it is not obvious that a grey scale effect has been used.

 



 

 

We also used effects such as the 'brightness and contrast' effect to change other videos. An example is shown below where we have edited an outside scene to have the same lighting as indoor and other scenes. We had to do this as sometimes the lighting in outdoor scenes varies due to the weather changing, which is something we cannot control.

 

 

 

 

Instead of decreasing the brightness function, we decided to increase the contrast which seemed to be more effective. An example of this is shown below where we have increased the contrast to 20. This was used in the closw up of the hands as the birds eye view shot that we have used means that the sun is very bright.

 



 

 

 

All throughout the editing process it was vital that we made sure the whole video linked, as if it didn't it could have an unprofessional and messy look to it. An example of this is shown below.



 

As you can see from this example we have used a common link to refer to of Alice putting her head in her hands and pushing her hair back. This also links to our magazine advert and this can link all parts of our whole project together. It also clearly links the two scenes together and gives a starting and eding point from the classroom scene to the bathroom scene.

 

 

 

Nearer the end of the video, we have used the quick cutting as talked about earlier after this we have a long hold on a close up of Alice in the classroom. We have cross faded this with a close up of Alice in the bath. We have used a correlation here to represent Alice's emotions and how her mood does not change throughout the video.

 



 

 

 

We have used many different editing techniques and skills throughout the making of our video to create a successful and professional music video.

 



 

 



Creating the Magazine Advert

For our second ancillary task we had to create and complete a magazine advert to promote our CD and album. 

For our magazine advert, we wanted to differ from the photos we had used on our CD cover, and have one with more body language involved, and using that to also portray emotion. We made sure to use the same make up and clothing that was used for the CD task. As you can see in the photo below (the one we have chosen to use) she is holding her hair back, and we decided to do this as she pushes her hair back in frustration a lot in our video.

Again we wanted to make sure that there was continuity and links throughout the two ancillary tasks so we decided to again put this photo into black and white as well, and we again did this in PhotoShop.

We also wanted to have a black background for this ancillary task, much like our other ancillary task. We used the 'paint' tool and the 'eraser' tool around the edges of the photograph to make the background black.

Some parts (such as the parts highlighted below) were hard to edit

We then put the photo into the programme 'InDesign' to see how much the outline of the photographs would stand out. As you can see it is not exactly professional looking and we will have to put the photo back into PhotoShop to edit it more.

To give it a more professional look we put a spacing around the image of Alice, and we did this by using the 'eraser' tool. This gave a smudge effect which highlighted the photo.

We then put it into InDesign, but this time realised that the top of the photo where the smudge effect was, looked too sharp, and did not look professional, this is shown below:

To overcome this problem, we decided to decrease the size of the magazine, which meant we could hide the sharpness at the top of the photograph. This did not cause any problems as everything we wanted to fit onto the page was still included.

Our final product is shown below, which we feel is successful as it keeps continuity with our other ancillary tasks and has a professional look to it.

Shown above is our predicted final product, which we thought was complete to hand in for moderation. However when giving it to our media teacher to look at for feedback, we found that his criticism was worrying as he said he did not like the poster at all, especially the white smudge effect around Alice which he thought was "terrible". Due to our negative feedback, we have decided to go back to the drawing board and edit our magazine advert further so that it looks better, even though we are pressed for time.

We decided to start by obviously editing the original photo to get rid of the smudge effect, which was the main part that our media teacher did not like. We did this on PhotoShop using the 'eraser' tool. This is shown in the photo below, where there are highlighted parts of Alice's arm. This process was extremely difficult as we had to be sure not to erase any of Alice's arm and only the smudge.

After removing the white edge we decided to put the photo back onto the page and see if it improved. We felt by editing this it did not as now, we feel, the advert is very plain with not much to look at. To overcome this problem, we decided to add more text to the page to increase interest and have more features to catch the audience's attention when looking at.

I have highlighted on the screen shot above the changes that have been made within the production of our magazine advert. We centered the image of Alice to make her the most prominent feature on the advert as the advert is promoting her song. We added ratings from popular music magazines and newspapers which allow a link to be made into real media products as we have seen this on real magazine adverts in our research. We also changed the colour of the 'Available now' text box to draw more attention to the fact that her songs are available for purchase, we changed it to red which links with the red 'A' on the album front cover. We also added a 'Debut' text box with a date of release for the whole album so that our target audience of teenagers and young people were aware of when the whole album will be out for sale. We have used the same font throughout our whole production of both ancillary tasks as this promotes strong continuity and allows our target audience to link all of our products together.

I have highlighted above the similar factors between the newest magazine advert with our other ancillary task. By using the same features on both products we are able to link all of our work together to convey a clear thinking process. We aimed for our products to link together well in order to promote a strong product, we have used a picture of the frontal album cover on the magazine advert so that our target audience are aware of the album that is being promoted. We have also used the same 'SONY MUSIC' text from the CD disk and back of album cover on the magazine advert to portray the music company which links to real media products. By making these changes to our magazine advert we have been able to create a more professional looking advert and it also looks less plain and simple by adding more information about the product we are promoting.

This is now our final magazine advert:



Magazine Advert: Specific Research

I decided that as I have concentrated on Rihanna and Adele a lot for my CD cover, to follow continuity, I should look at their magazine advert products as well to look at pofessional, real media products.

Adele's magazine advert, much like the adverts I liked from my basic research, contained the feature of showing her CD cover on the advert. The black and white effect is also used and the link between her CD cover and magazine advert is very clear and strong. This is shown below:

 

 

 

The magazine adverts below all have this same feature:



 

 

 

I want to inco-operate the following feature into my own advert:



 

 

 

Rihanna's album advert is shown above. She has used the same photograph on her album as on her advert. The black and white feature has been used through many adverts. We will use this.

As shown, the females on the adverts I have researched have been photographed using close ups. The females all appear to be center of the advertisement.This is something I would like to use. As well as this, all the examples I have found again, have the use of the models hands. For our magazine advert I hope to use this feature again. It will mean a connection between the album and the advertisement.

From this research, I have discovered that Alice will need to be in the center of the advertisement. As well as this, I believe that putting the music album onto the advert is a good way to promote it. The advertisement will be in black and white as it will then link well to our album, maintaining continuity.