Evaluation Question 1

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

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2

This is my Evaluation Question response to the question 'How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?'

Evaluation Question 2 from Max Rowlands

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience Feedback?

During the process of creating our Music Videos we were given feedback on the different pieces of work such as the First Draft, Digi Pak and Posters that we had been creating. 

The first piece of work I received feedback for was the first draft of our music video, from which we received positive feedback. Our Teacher and peers said that they enjoyed the music video and that it was well on its way to being perfect. There were a few things we needed to improve on such as a few extra camera angles to add more variety. After receiving this feedback we went and did another shoot in the drama room and tried to get really creative with the camera angles and positions. We also needed some more shots of 'Niamh' who was the main character for our narrative side of the music video. It was clear that the narrative wasn't complete and needed more work done to it. 

The next Piece of work i received Feedback for was the Digi Pak which some of my class peers gave there opinions on. Most of which said they really liked it and thought it matched the codes and conventions of a rock music genre. I received pretty much the exact same feedback for my poster as it was really similar to my digi pak following the low key lighting and edgy feel. Everyone seemed to like my colour scheme choices, agreeing that it was complimentary to the conventions of the rock genre. 

Evaluation Question 4

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

We used media technologies from the very beginning of this project to find inspiration, plan our music video and create our music video. 

YouTube was our main source for finding inspiration for our music video. Once we had picked a genre we would watch music videos from that genre to gain some sort of idea of what we want to create. Doing this gave each of us an image on what we thought we could create so from there we brainstormed all of our ideas. Putting them together to construct a final idea that we would then create.  

One the group members (Harry) would use Apple music (Media Technology) to listen to loads of music from that genre trying to find the song which we could create a music video for. This is how we found our chosen song 'Back to me' by 'Of Mice and Men'. 

To Construct our music video the lead cinematographer (Tommy) used a Sony A6000 to film everything. To edit the video the lead editor (Max) used Adobe's Premier Pro which allowed us to create the desired effects of slow motion and colour correction.  

Adobe Photoshop was used a lot during this project as we had to use it to create our Digi Pak and posters (Ancillary Texts).  Photoshop allowed us to tamper with the colours along with brightness and contrast of our images to make sure they looked exactly how we wanted them to.  

DaFont was the name of the website we used to find the font that we thought matched our genre of music video. We picked out 5-6 that we liked and thought worked and then gave out a questionnaire asking 'which of these fonts do you think best suits a rock genre music video.  

Blogger was used throughout the entire process of this project to record all the progress we were making towards creating our final creative piece.  

The media technologies that we used for our evaluation were Word Documents, a video and a voice note. 

Done by Max, Tommy, George and Harry

Final Draft of our Music Video

Final Draft of our Music Video

This is the final Draft for our Music Video 'Back to Me' by 'Of mice and Men'

Plan for Thursdays shoot

Plan for Thursdays Shoot

This Thursday we are planning on going back to Danson Park to shoot more footage of Niamh for our narrative. After receiving from our first screening we realised that we didn't have enough footage of Niamh which made our narrative unclear to the audience. 

For this shoot we will be taking my camera and steady cam, we may also take the tripod incase there are any shots we need to be completely still. 

A big concern we have about shooting is the weather, it needs to be similar to the first time we did the shoot otherwise the audience might get confused with the narratives timeline.

The Watchmen Poster

'The Watchmen' Poster

This is my Poster for 'The Watchmen' album 'Blind Faith'. For this poster i have used a picture i took during our photo shoot with the band which i feel matches our whole rock theme. When taking the photos i made sure that all the members were looking at the camera as i wanted to create a sort of personal touch with this poster so when people look at it, they feel like the band members are looking directly at them. I also included the social media details so that fans of the band would be able to keep up to date on the bands activity. 

Digi Pack

Digi Pack Idea

This is my Digi Pack design for our album 'Blind Faith'. I have used a blue a white colour scheme as i wanted to give my Digi Pack have a sort of 'Cold Look' to it. For the front cover of the Digi Pack i have a picture of all the members of 'The Watchmen' standing together. On the side with all the songs included on the album i have used a picture of a snowy mountain in the background. The reason i chose this image is because i feel it adds to the my idea of it being cold.

First Screening of our Music Video

First Screening

This is the first screening of our music video 'Back to Me' by 'Of Mice and Men' 

Plan for Thursdays shoot

Plan for Thursdays Shoot

On Thursday we are going to Danson Park to shoot some of our Narrative parts of our Music Video. We have decided that Niamh will be who our Narrative is based around. We will do some shots of her walking around the park looking as if she is lost or looking for something.

We will need to book out some equipment including a second camera and a tripod. I will be bring my camera and steady cam as well.

We hope that the weather will not be raining as this will make it extremely difficult to use some of the equipment, especially the camera.

We are hoping that with the steady cam we will be able to capture really smooth tracking shots of Niamh walking or maybe just tracking in towards her. 

The Watchmen's Album Song List

This is a list of the songs that will be included in our Album;

Back To Me
The Watchmen
Recon
Regenerate
Heavy Hearted
Wage War
Fire
Shoot you Down
Fight For Us
Brave And Stupid

Teacher Feedback

Teacher feedback

First attempt at making a Digi Pack

First Digi Pack

This is the first Digi Pack i have created using Photoshop. I am pretty happy with how it has turned out. It is missing the Head Front Panel which is the side that will be on the front. This is because i want to use a picture of the whole band together which we haven't got yet however we plan to get some photos done during our shoot on Thursday.

The picture on the top layer will be the inside of the CD case. The original picture i got of off the internet was a light green colour, although i really liked the image the colour just didn't match the blue theme. Instead of just trashing the image and finding something else i decided to colour correct the image i had found to make it more blue. I did this same process with the picture of the mountain, originally it was a big grey and not that interesting but after i colour graded it i made the shadows a bit more blue and the highlights a sort of reddish orange colour. I am pretty happy with how it has turned out but i do still need to get the band picture for the front cover.

Plan for Second Shoot

Second shoot Plan

For our second shoot on Thursday we are going to shoot more of the band scenes in our music video. We are aiming to get a few more shots of the individual band members so that its not constantly a full band shot. This is because there are parts of the song where we want the audiences attention to be on specific band members. For example on the guitar solo we want to get a close up of the guitarist playing. If we were to only use a full band shot then the audience is going to get confused and probably get bored. We want to mix it up and use a variety of shots to make it more interesting for the viewer. 

We still need to check whether all the people in the band are available to film on Thursday though so we will message them individually to check their availability. 

Once again we will probably book out two cameras so that we can have two people filming at once which speeds up the whole process. Obviously we have to consider not getting in each others way but i'm sure we can work around that.  We will likely book out a tri-pod too incase theres any full band shots or and shots that need to be steady with ease. A steady cam might also be needed if there are any shots that require a steady hand, so if we are including a lot of motion in our camera movement we want to avoid getting too much camera shake. Lastly we will need to book out the LED light that places on top of the camera. The reason we use this light is because when trying to film close ups of the band we noticed that the shadow of the camera and the camera man was being shown in the frame. This was because the lights being used to light the scene were behind us. Using the LED light was helpful as it got rid of that shadow. 

Animatic

Animatic

This is our animatic for our music video. An animatic is pretty much a slide show of all the shots that we plan on using in order. A music video without the motion in between shot but just freeze frames. We hope that this will give a rough idea on what our music video will look like however when it comes to shooting our music video we might change some of it.

First Shoot

First Shoot

On Wednesday we did our first proper shoot for our band scenes. We were pretty happy with what we shot so far. One of the things we liked most was the spot lighting which we created by using the light control panel in the drama room. Around the edges of the shot except the floor begin to black out. This means the audience will not have a clear idea on where the band is which is the effect we wanted to create as we want the band to seem mysterious. We do still need to shoot more for the band scene and get some more close ups of the individual band members but we are pretty happy with what we shot so far. 

Plan for first Shoot

Plan for First Shoot 

We have planned to do our first shoot on Wednesday next week. We have asked the drama staff whether it will be ok to shoot in the room we need which they have agreed will be fine. We will book out the equipment we need on the day. This includes: 2 cameras, Tri-Pod and a steady cam. 

We also need to make sure that the band members are available to shoot that day which so far everyone except the guitarist has agreed on that day whilst the guitarist (Luke) has not got back to us but we are convinced it should be ok. 

We need to message the band members to let them know what kind of clothing we need them to wear. This will be decided by the group member in charge of mice-en-scene (George). 

New Storyboard

New Storyboard

After we realised that our first storyboard wasn't long enough and didn't have enough frames, we decided we should scrap the first one and make a new one. 

Song lyrics Annotation

Song Lyrics Annotation

This is an analysis of the lyrics for our song. 

CD Digipak Research

CD DigiPak Research

As part of our coursework this year we need to make a Digipak for our band. A Digipk is a more modernised/stylish version of the CD jewel case that can hold one or more CD's in it. The CD's are held in place with plastic trays (flexitrays)

They give the product a more professional expensive look.  Especially when combined with a good looking material such as Matt Lamination or Spot UV.   

The most common type of Digipak is the 4-pack which opens up like a book, however, the 6 pack is also quite popular,  8 and 10 panels are also available. Digipak styled packaging is seen as less resistant to damage than the traditional jewel CD case as it is made from stock card however manufacturers have started to add a Matt Lamination so that is becomes water resistant and increased longevity.