Monday, 20 December 2010

Evaluation: Question 4

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

We used a number of different technologies to create our digipak, advert and video.

Once we had chosen our song, we needed to find out more about the band, which included watching some of their videos, especially for our song, In The Morning. In order to do this, we used YouTube, where most of the band's official videos have been uploaded. YouTube is a relatively new website, created just five years ago. However, it has been of vital importance for our project, as it also provided us a with a free way to publish our video to the internet, so other people around the world would be able to watch it.
During our construction and research, we began our blogs. For mine, I have used this site Blogspot, which I have found easy to use, and it has also enabled me to upload photos and text and embed videos. The blog is a key part of our coursework, and the availability of this website has been very important. In order to get the images for our digipak, we used digital cameras, a fairly modern technology. This allowed us to take a large number of photos and delete the ones we did not like, whereas if we had had to use a film camera, we would have had to print all the photos, and then choose the best. We also used a digital camcorder, with a DV tape, which was much lighter and easier to transport that older less modern cameras.

While on location, and meeting up, we also used technologies such as our mobile phones in order to contact each other, and these would have been especially useful if on the days of filming, our group was missing a member, which fortunately did not occur.
Another website that has been extremely useful during our research is Google, which has provided us with images of the band, and other aspects such as information on our chosen genre. We have also found other useful links through Google, such as Wikipedia, where the page on the Coral proved to be very useful.
During the production of our advert and digipak, we have been using Adobe Photoshop CS3 to create a layout, edit photos, and add other elements such as text, logos, etc. We began by pasting a background for our digipak into the program at first, and then began to add our images and text over the top. As each image and piece of text goes in a separate layer on Photoshop, we were able to edit these at a later date, which was hugely beneficial over other more basic image manipulation programs.


A further technology we have been able to use during our coursework is a site called SurveyMonkey.com. This site has enabled us to create a survey and post it online in order to gain feedback from our potential audience. YouTube's comment feature also proved useful here as we were able to ask viewers to give their opinions of the video. A further site we used, in order to gain as much feedback as possible, was Facebook, where we shared the video on our own pages, and asked friends to comment on it.
In order to share everything on our blogs, we had to use technologies to get them there. These ranged from scanning the images for our storyboards, to emailing each other photos and documents such as shooting schedules.

Tuesday, 14 December 2010

Evaluation: Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We have gained feedback in a number of ways for our project. The first way we used was asking people to comment on our YouTube video, and give us their opinions. We have received quite a few responses this way, which has been very useful for this evaluation. However, these responses were all positive, and we also needed some contructive criticism for our video, which we obtained through our questionnaire on SurveyMonkey.com. Another method we attempted to use was by posting it on our Facebook pages, but this did not generate much feedback.
However, before we began our project, we conducted some audience research to discover what people thought about the Coral, and what their expectations were of the band and their genre. Although the Coral are not that well known, due to being an indie band, and therefore not mainstream, we were able to find some fans to complete the survey, and discover more about what people would expect to see when we created our own video. From this survey, we were able to determine that fans would expect to see unusual and confusing images on album covers, and would expect the videos to not follow mainstream codes and conventions. We endeavered to use this feedback when creating our own digipak, by using the image of the bear having removed it's head, and by having a fairly unusual theme throughout our video of the randomly occuring happy events.
When we had completed our video, we uploaded it to YouTube, and asked people to comment on the video to get a feel of what people felt about it straight after viewing it. We were able to ascertain that people tended to be fond of particular elements in the video, particularly those that were ususual, such as the bear dancing at the top of Clifford's tower. It seems that these unusal aspects boost people's opinions of the video, and make them like the video more.

In order to gain further feedback, we created a SurveyMonkey.com questionnaire, which was posted alongside the video on YouTube, which asked four questions about the video. This did not gain as much feedback as the video, only generating thre mostly positive responses. However, one response did give critical comments of the video, especially regarding the editing. Some of the changes suggested would not be possible however, and one person completing the survey respected this, when pointing out the song was too short, also added that we would be unable to change the length of this.

This is the feedback we received on SurveyMonkey



http://www.surveymonkey.com/?cmpid=eng:gb:ps:google
Link to SurveyMonkey, where questionnaires consisting of ten or fewer questions can be created for free
I also posted the video on my blog, and received a couple of comments this way, which helped add to our feedback. From our feedback, although limited, we have discovered that viewers think the video is interesting and engaging, and have a generally positive thoughts to give. However, the feedback has allowed us to identify on areas we could improve, such as the editing, but the majority of the improvements suggested would be ideal, but not possible with the resources we have access to.
Most of our feedback has been gathered online, from people we do not know, and this has led to us concluding a number of things. We have a received a very large proportion of positive feedback, and we have concluded that this is probably due to the fact that people recognise it is a group of students' music video, so are less likely to be critical. However, a lot of the time, when looking at comments on other music videos it is possible to see that although people give their opinions, this does not give an idea, of whether this is what to expect of a video, unless it largely differs from conventions.
We can also see, and this is especially prevalent on our Facebook pages where our friends comment, that people who know you are likely to give positive feedback, but not give information on why it gives them such a positive outlook on the video, and this feedback may just be due to the fact that they want to praise their friends' work.

Monday, 13 December 2010

Evaluation: Question 2

How effective is the combination of yor main product and ancillary texts?
For our coursework, we have developed three key elements that could be used to sell an album, consisting of a digipak, advert and our video. Throughout the three we have continued themes in order to end up with what seems to be a single package, designed to sell an album. The theme is clear between the advert and the digipak. The digipak features as the back cover a photo of the bear, and we used the same photo for our advert. We also continued the bear theme on the front cover of the digipak by having a photo of the bear with the other stars of our video. This photo is taken on a set of steps, which are also featured in our video, when our star slides down the banister, so this theme is again linked.






The characters featured in the 1000 Years video, as opposed to the bear in our video.
The entire package consists of bright colours, and creates an almost carefree image, from our star causually strolling through town to the photo of the untidy bedroom featured in our digipak.
The theme of the bear also features throughout, something we decided upon after watching some of the Coral's own videos, such as 1000 Years, which features dressed up animals in them, such as a man wearing a bear head whilst chopping fruit.
In our AS studies, we learnt about synergy, using two or more products together to create a stronger image for all of them. For our coursework, we have used our three final products together in order to produce this effect. The video backs up the digipak, which is also supported by the advert for publicity. If these were real media products, we would be able to use them to promote one another like this, and sell the album in the digipak we have designed.

However, it should be noted that our project reflects one of the Coral's brighter, more cheerful albums, as some of the covers, such as that of The Invisible Invasion, are much darker than ours, even though our characters have fairly sullen expressions on on the front cover. The Coral's videos are sometimes quite dark as well, whereas ours is an undeniably cheerful theme throughout.
As a whole, our project would hopefully be very effective at promoting the album as we have given it all a fairly unique look, through using unusual events in the video, and having a dressed up character of the bear as our second most important star throughout the video. This, and the bright colours and carefree images, linked to the continuing themes through the three products, helps it to appeal to its target audience in the indie genre.



Friday, 10 December 2010

Evaluation: Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our video of In the Morning by the Coral is unusual for a mainstream music video, but seems inkeeping with the theme of the Coral, an independent band. The videos for songs by the Coral are unusual in comparison to that of other mainstream artists, which has given us more room to add different ideas that do not necessarily fit in with certain codes and conventions that you may expect in the video of a band such as the Foo Fighters.
All of the Coral's videos vary considerably, which meant that we wanted to create a video that would capture this same individualism so present in videos by the Coral. In our performance, we did this by having a stereotypically dressed front man for our band, and the additions of a bear and a tambourine player to add a unique feel to the video. The addition of a bear is not that disimilar to The Coral's Dreaming of You video, in which a bear dances around in the background, whilst the band are in a narrow room, and on the beach.


Our video follows a linear narrative, as our star goes about his day. It begins with him waking up, and ends later in the day after his journey into town, and back to the bus stop to go home. This follows a key convention of many music videos. Although we do not actually have a live band performing, we do still have the aspect of a group performance, through the dancing at the end, and the bear and busker playing instruments throughout their appearances.
The key concept for our video is a man going about his day, and reapeatedly being joined by strange characters such as the bear. This is not disimilar to the themes and concepts used in videos by the Coral, who have a bear keep appearing behind them in their Dreaming of You video. Our theme is underlying throughout the video, again inkeeping with the stereotype.
Our video also features a relationship between the lyrics of the song and the visuals. When the lyrics, went to the shop are sung, our character enters a shop, and as made plans to be leaving is heard, our character opens the shop door and walks out. We also show an image of the bear in a telephone box, just as the lyrics about writing on a red telephone box.
Another key element of music videos we have also featured is the use of close-ups of our star, especially at the beginning of the video when he is waking up. These are often used at the request of record labels in other music videos, so we did this in order to follow this convention.
For our video, we have tried to use a variety of shots in order to have a more interesting video. During the beginning of the video, we have used a number of close-ups on our lead's face, and have used more long shots towards the end of the video, especially when the group are dancing in the museum gardens. This is farly in keeping with traditional conventions. There are a number of long shots, such as on the beach at the end in the Dreaming of You video, and more close up shots when a band member sings.
For our editing, we have used a number of jump cuts in order to make it fit with the music, and also as we feel it is more fitting for the cuts. However, in the videos by The Coral that we have watched, there are not many jump cuts at all, so this is not a traditional convention of their videos. However, we chose to challenge this convention, as we felt that it enhanced our video.
Our mise-en-scene however, seems quite fitting for the video. For the majority of the song, our character strolls through the streets of York, except for at the beginning when he is inside the house. This casual setting that we have used reflects the Coral's background from Liverpool. When they cycle to the beach in Dreaming of You, it is simply down everyday streets, similar to the ones that we have filmed on. Our character is also dressed in a fairly traditional manner, that is representative of the indie genre.

For our video, we used one sound effect, that of an alarm that we downloaded in order to add it to the video, because we could not hear any background sounds in our video. The rest of the Coral's videos feature music for the entirety, so there are not any sound effects like this, but sounds like this are used over other music videos, so it is not a complete contradiction of conventions.
For our digipak and advert, we have also followed some of the traditional codes and conventions. We have used a number of different images for our digipak, all of which were edited in order to make them look more like a real digipak would. We followed most of the conventions with our digipak, by adding titles, credits, record label information, copyright logos, and CD and DVD logos. We also used the same font as the Coral use on their albums, downloaded from dafont.com. This allowed for our digipak to look as realistic as possible. For our advert, we used a single photo, also featured on our digipak. We continued the theme used on the digipak for our advert, which we felt followed the conventions of typical adverts and digipaks.

Monday, 6 December 2010

Evaluating


The final part of our coursework is the evaluation, where we will asses what we have achieved throughout the past few months that we have been working on our project. We have just begun work on our evaluation this week, and we have until the 16th December to finish this evaluation, and post it to our blogs.

For the evaluation, we must answer four questions, which are

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
• What have you learned from your audience feedback?
• How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

The aim of this evaluation is to discover how we have progressed throughout the project, and what we have learnt, and discover whether we have created a product that could actually be marketed in our chosen genre. I will be posting the answers to these four different questions on this blog. However, for the third question, we are still struggling to gain enough feedback, so any additional feedback on YouTube or this blog would be helpful in order to make the best attempt at answering this question.