Note To Examiner...

Below you will see my group's final product, a music video for the song, 'i hate you, i love you' by Gnash ft Olvia O'Brien. Following the music video is my two ancillary tasks; my digipak and magazine advert. The research, planning and production elements of my work are organised throughout my blog under labels, these can be quickly and easily accessed by clicking on the relevant label under the title of 'labels' in the sidebar.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the work I have completed throughout the duration of this project and I feel like my skills have been significantly improved across all areas.

Final Edit of Music Video...

Shown above is the final edit to our music video product

Overall, I am very happy with how our music video has come together and been completed. I believe that this product highlights our creative instincts as a group and how we successfully work together to produce a narrative based music video which features a range of shots. 

Evaluation - Q4

Evaluation Question 4 

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

My use of media technologies has significantly improved and developed across all areas of my advanced portfolio compared to my foundation portfolio for AS. I feel that I have gained a much for in-depth knowledge of the media technologies I had already used last year but also gained an abundance of new skills, using media technologies I have not used previously.

A list of the media technologies I have used across all areas of this project:

• Blogger
• Edublogs
• YouTube 
• FaceBook
• Twitter
• Premiere Pro
• Photoshop  
• Prezi 
• Slideshare 
• Websites used to conduct research and plan
• Adobe Aftereffects 

I have summarised the pro's and con's of some of these sites/programmes in the presentation linked below which I created using 'Go Animate'. 

CLICK HERE - Link To 'GO ANIMATE' presentation on pro's & con's

Edublogs

This is an online blogging site which I initially started using at the beginning of the project. I had a look at other blogging sites that I could possibly use and this seemed to be one of the most popular results. At first, the site appeared to be great, however, when I looked at what content you can add to your blog posts I quickly realised that you can not add YouTube videos and this would prove to be a major problem as our final products are uploaded to YouTube and I also find my influences from YouTube which I would not be able to include on my blog with Edublogs. 

Blogger 

After experimenting with Edublogs I decided to resort back to Blogger which I used to blog all my work in my foundation portfolio. This is a site which I am familiar with and I know that it lets me upload the content I will need for my blog posts. The one disadvantage with blogger is that the format of the posts cannot be changed that much, sometimes it can restrict you to where you place images and titles, however, these are very minor aspects. Blogger does let you change and customise your theme which great, this meant I could have my blog exactly how I want it. I chose one of the 'simple' templates and customised the size and colour of my texts and titles along with the backgrounds and page widths.

YouTube 

I used YouTube for all stages of my project; construction, research, planning and the evaluation and it has most definitely helped me. YouTube can in handy specifically in the research stage of my project. I used this site to look at existing music videos to see what inspired me and what influences I could bring to my group. I also used YouTube to look at how other A Level students constructed their music videos and what narratives they consisted of.

I used YouTube during the construction stage of my music video as we uploaded drafts to YouTube as went along. Ollie and Rhys also used YouTube to search for editing tutorials, such as how to add the adjustment layers and how to edit together our 360-degree shot.

Facebook & Twitter 

I used these 2 social media sites during the research and planning stages of the project. These sites help us to organise ourselves and allowed us to contact each other easily.

Firstly, Facebook, as a group we created a group chat where we could all keep in contact with each other and easily send messages that all four of us could access so we could arrange filming times which were suitable for all of us to attend. A Facebook group chat is very convenient for us as we can access it from our phones so almost instantly we all get a notification which we are able to reply to quickly.


Twitter was used to try and contact the artists to seek permission for using their song in our video. Not all of the group use Twitter, therefore, I used my Twitter account to send a message to the artists, The disadvantage to Twitter is that artists and celebrities often get their agents to Tweet on their behalf so they do not get chance to see the messages themselves and the number of Tweets that a particular artist can get is most often too many to go through and reply to them all.


Premiere Pro 

Premiere Pro was the programme which the final product was constructed and edited on; all of us were familiar with this programme as this is what we used in our foundation portfolio to edit our thriller openings.

At first, using Premiere Pro was great, however, our school did not have this programme installed so we were taking regular trips to the nearby college to use their editing facilities and media suite. As we approached the middle of our editing process, the college changed the availability of the rooms we were using due to the lessons that they had to hold there. This restricted us in terms of when we could edit and hindered our process slightly. To ensure we did not fall too far behind we had a look at what software we had on our computers/laptops at home. We soon found out that Rhys could download Premiere Pro on his laptop, therefore, this is what we used to finish editing our music video. This resulted in some of our editing being done by Rhys in his house and also with opinions from us a group when he brought the laptop to school to continue editing.

Photoshop

I used Adobe Photoshop to construct my two ancillary tasks; the digipak and magazine advert. Photoshop is a programme which I felt the least confident with at the start of this project, prior to this I had some experience with photoshop but not much. From producing my ancillary tasks I have learnt a variety of skills in photoshop such as layering, grouping and warping, along with colour and opacity adjustments and corrections.  This has given me confidence in using photoshop in the future as I am equipped with the further skills and knowledge I feel that I needed.

SlideShare

SlideShare is an online site which allows users to view and upload PowerPoint presentations; I used the site to upload presentations I have made in order to get the 'embed' code to copy and paste onto my blog. It would be easier if presentations could be uploaded directly to blogger, however with SlideShare, it does not take that much longer to upload and insert content. SlideShare is a programme which I used last year also, therefore, I had an account which I could log straight into, making the process easy and effective.


Adobe After Effects

Adobe After Effects is a programme which I had not heard off until the editing process of our music video. Ollie knew about this software and decided that this is what we would use to construct our lyrics. From my perspective, the software looked rather complicated however, Ollie knew how the software worked from past experience so was able to successfully complete the lyrics.

Pro's & Con's of technology used table:

Evaluation - Q3

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is a crucial element to seeing what people thought about our final product. 

We held a showcase evening for friends and family to come along and view our videos and work over the period of this project. 

Our digipaks, magazine adverts and filming photos were displayed on large boards around one of the rooms for people to clearly see our work. On the evening I was asked for feedback on my digipak and magazine advert and some of the comments I collected were:

"I really like how professional both products look"

"I can tell that both products link as they have a consistent theme throughout"

"Locations and skills have been used well to create an effective product"

From my feedback I have learnt that the audience can see that I have tried to link the two products, signifying that they both act as a promotional tool for the same product. I have also learnt that it is vital to not only got feedback on the main task but also the ancillary tasks to see how they all link and showcase my skills.

This POWTOON highlights some of the feedback that we collected after we shown our music video:

We were very happy with the feedback we received on our music video during the showcase evening.

A member of the audience was kind enough to be discussed on video their thoughts on our video:

The audience feedback that we gathered from the showcase allowed me to look back at my target market and research that I conducted towards the initial stage of the planning and research stage to compare the feedback to what I wanted to achieve:

This is what I said at the beginning of the process.

The feedback received links to what I initially said; the audience picked up that our target market could be 'people in relationships' and 'younger people' but we also received some feedback that told us that our music video could be aimed to older people/adults rather than young people/teenagers. We also said that we wanted to target anyone in a relationship that is not really functioning as well as it could be. I feel that this has been achieved as some feedback told us that the themes they noticed were: relationships, changing relationships and mental health. 

There was an audience vote on the evening for numerous awards such as, 'Best Cinematography', 'Best Editing' and 'Best Music Video'.

My group won 'BEST MUSIC VIDEO', something which we were very pleased with as it felt like our hard work paid off and reflected how well the audience excepted our music video.

Audience Feedback throughout the project and what I have learnt/gained/changed from it:

Gaining a suitable audience for the music video:

Audience feedback throughout the project has allowed me to understand the importance of gaining a suitable audience that would like our music video. The feedback we received was mostly suggestions to make our music video better and the improvements that were suggested implied that once we did them, the video would be more enjoyable. We asked a demographic of both males and females, aged 16 - 20 to give feedback on our work as we went along, as well as our media teachers. We asked people aged 16 - 20 to provide feedback and this was our chosen target age range, therefore, we learnt that our target market enjoyed the product we had created and they were able to give us suggestions to make it even better, meaning that they would enjoy it even more. 

From audience feedback I have learnt that we chose the correct age demographic for our target audience as the feedback we gained highlighted that they enjoyed the music video but they could also think of ways we can improve the video to make it even better. 

My audience feedback also made me consider  Jeremy Tunstall's audience theory; 

This made me consider the various audience types for our music video and how they would receive it.

Primary Audience: My primary audience would be fully emerged in the narrative of my music video and would be equally interested in the song. Therefore, my primary audience would have viewed/download the music video and brought the album for the song. 

Secondary Audience: My secondary audience would be interested in my product but would also be consumed in something else whilst viewing/listening to the music video. This means that they might not have purchased the album but they would listening to the song or watch the video whenver it was one. 

Teritary Audience: My teritary audience would not be fully engaged in my product (products) but they would use them as a backround tool. For example, they may play the album whilst in the car or leave the music video playing if it was on YouTube or music video channel on TV. 

Evaluation - Q2

Evaluation Question 2

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

Media Evaluation - Question 2 from Joshua East

Evaluation - Q1

Evaluation Question 1

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

How does my magazine advert work?

In order to evaluate the functionality of my magazine advert, I decided to create a mock-up magazine to see what it would look like.

I used Photoshop in order to complete this task; firstly I had to group the layers on my magazine advert to make it easier to move them all together rather than each element separately. I then had to find a simple image of an 'open magazine' on the internet in order to place my advert over the top of one of the pages. I then had to use the warp tool to manipulate the image to the correct size to make it look like it actually belongs in the chosen magazine. I had never used this tool on photoshop prior to this task, therefore, I had to spend a little time familiarising myself with how it functions and how to warp an image most effectively. 

These are the two products I created: 

Promotion...

Using 'Animaker', I produced an animated advertisement for the 'new album'. I would display this advert on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to promote the product.

This animated advert features the magazine advert, therefore, if someone who has seen this advert sees the advert in a magazine they will be able to recognise the product and hopefully be tempted to purchase it.

This diagram below, highlights below how many people are registered on the following social media platforms. As it can be clearly seen, a staggering amount of people use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, these are the predominant sites which I would be using to feature my advertisement on. There are also many other social media platforms which have a high number of users, therefore, this is what I could consider for the future. 

Distribution of Magazine Advert...

What music magazines might feature my magazine advert to promote the album?

As the purpose of my magazine advert is to act as a marketing tool for the actual album, I have decided to have a look into what magazines may want to feature my advert and what types of people will come across it in a magazine.

Billboard Magazine: 

Billboard is America's biggest music magazine, however, it is not as popular in the United Kingdom. It would be great to feature my magazine advert in Billboard magazine however, I am not sure of the outcome due to the main reading audience being based in the United States. 

Entertainment Weekly:

Entertainment Weekly is a relatively new, music magazine however, it has proven to be very popular. It can be found in most retailers and hence its name, there is a new one released weekly. If I can secure my advert to be shown in this magazine for a series of a couple of weeks, I believe that the advert will be noticed by many of my potential target market. 

Music Week:

Music Week is roughly the UK's equivalent of America's billboard magazine. It is a magazine for the music industry which began in 1959. This magazine is published 51 weeks a year, therefore, I believe if this magazine distributed my advert, there would be a large amount of people viewing it. 

Timing issue...

Something which we have noticed about our final edit of our music video is that there are a few shots which are not in time with the music, especially at the start of the video. This did not have a major effect on our final product however we did feel that it took away from the professionalism of the product.

   

After some research into why this issue may have occurred we found out that when our video was rendered in Premier Pro, preparing for the export, the timing changed slightly, meaning that all our shots were between 1 and 2 seconds shorter and sooner than we originnaly put them.

Copyright Issues...

I am aware that You Tube has the power and authority to remove videos from their site if they breach the laid out copyright rules and regulations. In order to protect ourselves from this issue we each had a look under the 'copyright' section of You Tube whilst we were uploading our music videos. 

From looking at this information we can see that, the claimant of the song, 'WMG on behalf of Atlantic Records' is allowing us to use the song for our video, however, they may be adverts appear before the content occasionally. This does not bother us as we are now know that You Tube are fully aware of the content of our music video and it will not be taken down because of this.