Tuesday 1 February 2011

Evaluation.Question 4

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

PRODUCTION
New media technologies were evident in the editing stages, mainly because we had to use Final Cut Pro an editing software some of us were not familiar with.When making sure the performances were in sync I used an ipod and an and ipod dock, this really helped us when getting the bend members to sing along with the track, and when it came to editing the video as a whole. To keep in contact with the band we used social networking and the good old mobile phones, we felt it important to be well organized because we all had different schedules and different times everyone was available, so by using these means of communication we were able to keep everything well organized and nobody got frustrated.  In terms of the performance shots the use of the guitar hero was another part of new media that we embarked upon throughout the construction element throughout the video.

PLANNING&RESEARCH
The main thing I used when planning our video was the Internet, mainly YouTube, in order to analyse as many videos as I possibly could. I also looked into social networking in order to make our band seem more real, the social networks we decided to use for the band were Twitter and Facebook, mainly because they are popular amongst our target audience.

Evaluation.Question 3

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
The most important part of the music video process was receiving our audience feedback. We posted our video on many forms of social networking, in order to receive as many comments about our music video as we could. One thing that was good about our audience feedback is everyone seemed enjoy the video and they weren't bored whilst watching which is something we wanted to achieve. As well as the positive feedback I also received some constructive criticism on it. The first form of feedback I got was right at the beginning of the editing stages, our teacher felt that the performance shots from the pub didn't do justice to the original idea of the video, as a group we were advised to re-shoot everything, I felt quite upset about this because I thought it was going to take a long time to do. I then thought of the idea to incorporate Guitar hero into the performance shots, in order to distinguish the idea of work and play, and I feel this gave the video some depth and also something exciting to switch too and from. When filming the fun shots i had to do this by myself, because Jason and Molly were unable to attend the shoot, one thing I was advised to do was set up the shots but make them look as if they were natural, I achieved this by removing one of the members at a time in order to make it look like POV shots, I then instructed the band in what I wanted them to do and when they did it they put their own swing on it which made it look very natural and un staged,most of all it gave off the element of fun which what the initial point of our video. Another thing that came about from the audience feedback was the lighting in our performance shots looked a bit bland therefore not highlighting the band and emphasising the band in the right ways, unfortunately this problem could not be altered on final cut in the way I would like, so we had to leave these shots as they were The audience we showed it too also commented on the quick cut shots at the start of the guitar solo, they felt it gave the video some pace and also kept the audience on there feet. Another thing we got from audience feedback was the performance shots needed to be embedded a bit more with full band and it was this that made us re-work the guitar solo portion of the video and we worked in more individual band member shots.The main thing we took from the feedback is if were to do it again we would take into careful consideration the lighting, in order to give the video a much more professional clean finish.

The audience feedback was very useful in the construction of our music video because it gave us something to work on and consider if we were to go back and start again. I am happy with the feedback I received because it gave us things to improve upon with our music video.

Evaluation.Question 2

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
When I was informed I had to make a Digi-Pack and poster I wanted to emphasise the same amount of fun that I had in the video. Although we abandoned the shots in the pub we still took some lovely still photographs which I think work very well in creating a sense of fun within the CD cover and poster. I decided to use the same font on the Digi Pack as I used on my Poster in order to make them relate. In terms of the font I decided to make the font look somewhat like the Magners cider font this was relating back to the brief and I felt this worked well with the band themselves. The colour scheme I used for the Digi-Pack and poster was red and white, the reason for using these colours is because they are the main colours used in advertising and I feel this would make my CD cover and Poster stand out in any music store and billboard.  For the poster I decided to make the central image of the band the only thing in colour and everything else in black and white, to make the band stick out, I upped the contrast again to make them stand out, something I feel is important in the world of advertising. On the back of the CD cover I decided to display the Twitter and Facebook logos as well as the Blackberry Pin bar code, so the fans of our band to keep in contact with the band (it also makes the band seem more real). I also displayed our record label and the bar code again because this is what real CD covers include.

I felt it important to create some consistency between the ancillary product and the video. I went right back to the first planning stages of the product, the first thing that I noticed was we wanted to incorporate fun into the video, so that was my starting point. I also wanted to the audience to know that these boys have been friends for a while so I felt the image for the poster should tell this.