Candidate Details

Candidate Name:

Zoe Richardson

Candidate Number:

5095

Centre Name:

Wilmington Grammar School for Girls

Centre Number:

61119

AS Blog:
http://zoerichardsonasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/

Evaluation 4

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

Evalutation 3

What have you learnt from Audience Feedback?

To get an initial idea of what the audience thought of our music video, we decided to put it on facebook, as we felt it was a quick and guarenteed way to get audience feedback. Here is a screenshot of some of the comments we got back:

From these comments, I learnt the following things:

• The use of colour for the memory scenes was hugley effective and showed exactly what we wanted it to show- which was that it was a flashback.
• We were successful in cutting the clips to the beat of the music which is seen in all music videos.
• And lastly we managed the mise-en-scene really well with the type of genre we were going for. For example, the clothing we put our actress in and the props we used in the background.

To get a further understanding of what our audience thought of our music video, me Charlotte and Sarah Biswell questioned our peers to see what they thought. Here is a video, showing what we found:

Getting this feedback was really helpful, as it meant that we could clarify that it was well recieved by our target audience. It also allowed us to learn more about what our target audience thought of our video and the ancillary tasks. Some of the following things we found out were:

• It followed the forms and conventions of real media products really well, as some of the things we did are regularly seen in music videos. For example, the cutting to the beat of the music, then having a storyline with lip syncing along the way.
• The use of editing, such as changing certain scenes to black and white was effective in making the audience see that they were from a differet time.
• The storyline fit really well with the lyrics of the song, and potrayed what the song was about effectivley.
• The one negative comment we got, was that the ancillary tasks and the music video did not link as much as it could. However, in our research we noticed that the artist appeared much more glamorous on the digipak and advert than in the video. Therefore, we kept the same type of genre that we did in the music video and just dressed her up more, to make a greater association with real media products.

After looking at all these different comments, I am very pleased with our music video and ancillary tasks, as there were no real improvments and negative comments that we got back. It all seemed to be positive and were what we wanted people to acknowledge when they saw the products. 

However, if my group and I were able to change our video within the next 2 weeks, I would definitely consider making more a link between the main product and the ancillary tasks. I would suggest doing this by dressing our artist in the clothes that she was in for the flashback scenes where she was more content in the music video, as these clothes were  much more glamorous and appealing. This would ensure that there was more of a link between the 3 products, but it also followed on from the research we found, which was that the artist on digipaks and magazine adverts had a much more attractive and glamorous look compared to what they wore in the music videos.

Evaluation 2

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

 

Evaluation 1

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

(Please click the logo in the top right hand corner to change to full screen)

Final Cut

Here is the final cut of our music video:

Final Re-Shoot

After getting the class feedback from our class, we decided to re-film our last bits, to ensure that our video is almost perfect. Me and Sarah created a list of things that we needed to do and wrote them down in chronological order to ensure we did not forget anything and got the filming done quickly and efficiently.

Here is the list we made:

Editing

After filming all the bits we needed, me and Sarah went back to school to edit the last bits together to create our final cut. This involved putting our final clips into Adobe Premiere and then changing the parts that were suggested by our class.

Me and Sarah editing our final cut.

Part of our editing involved adding transitions to guatentee that our music video flows well and establishes that time is passing or something different is going to happen. So just like we did before we used the "cross fade" effect which makes two neighbouring clips blend into one as the other clips changes.

The next thing we did was add markers to help us with our cutting. The Markers are placed in the timeline so that you can mark a time in the music video. We needed these short quick clips to be cut to the beat when Ellie was walking towards the camera, so the markers helped us do this.
After doing these two things, we decided that our music video, was the best it could be and we finally finished it.

Class Feedback for Magazine Advert

To get some feedback for our magazine advert, and possibly get some improvments, we showed our Media class just like we did for our digipak. Some of the following feedback they come up with was:

• There is a clear link between the red lips and the red font, we used for "Ignorance."
• The size that we used for the date, attracts the right amount of attention, so the audience know exactly when the album is on sale.
• The image used, is the one we used on the digipak, which means the two can be easily linked by the audience.
• The ratings were realistic, and would attract an audience.
• Though the same image is used for both ancillary taks, more is shown on this product making it different.

The only improvment they suggested was that:

• Possibly add a record label image onto the advert

Magazine Advert: Finished Product

Digipak: Overall Finished Product

Construction of Magazine Advert

1) To start we agreed that we should use the same edited image that we used for our Digipak, because our research showed that this is what is usually done. We decided to put the image towards the left hand side and make the magazine advert landscape, as we thought this was less common and fit better with the image. However, ths image was not as large was we hoped, so we had to change the size which resulted in there being a grey solid line down the side. So we had to use the eyedropper tool to get the same colour background and fill the gap in.

2) The next thing we did was add the name of the artist and name of the album. From our research we noted again that this was exactly the same as the album, so we used the same font and colours and put it in around the same spot by the side of her head, but this time it had to be on the left side, as there was no room on the right.



3) For the next step, we put on additional features which are commonly seen on magazine adverts. I did not find this from my research, but other members in my group find that some magazine adverts have ratings on them from well-known magazines, newspapers or radio stations.

As a group, we liked this idea, because it shows how popular the album is and would therefore hopefully attract a wider audience if it was actually for sale. So we used the text we used from parts of the Digipak and made some quotes and ratings up.

4) Another regular feature we found was on magazines was the release date. This is an important feature, because the whole point of the magazine advert is to show the album is on sale and when you can get it. So we used a large font size so it is very visible and clear and then made a date up for when our album will be coming out.

5) Next, we added contact information to the advert, as this was something I found on all the adverts that I looked in to. We had already done this on our digipak, so we simply transfered it onto our advert and placed it in a different place, where it can be seen quite well, but without taking all the attention. We used the same font and style to ensure continuity throughout.

6) The last thing we did, was add an image of our digipak to the bottom right hand corner. I had research this on a Paramore advert I had looked at, and my group members also found the same thing. To do this we simply placed the image and put in the place that we felt looked best. 

Here is the final product:

Magazine Advert Drawings: Update

After going back and actually looking at some magazine adverts that were specifically for advertising well-known albums, I found that we should take a different approach to our advert. I noticed that instead of the advert relating to the video, it continued on from what the digipak looked like. Therefore, I created up an additional sketch which included the image from the digipak, as this was what I found from my research. I also noticed that not all adverts and portrait, so I did some research into landscape ones, and decided that I liked the idea of a landscape one more.

This includes some of the same things from my intitial research such as the release date and name, but it has new things such as ratings and in image of the album. I definitely prefer this idea to the original ones, as I feel this will look much more proffesional and add continuity to our products.

Magazine Advert Research: Portrait or Landscape?

After doing some research into different magazine adverts, I initially believed that all magazine adverts were portrait. However, after continuing to look at them I came across a Paramore advert that was kanscape. Some of my group members noticed the same thing, so I decided to see if there were any more, as we quite liked the idea of having a landscape advert.

Here is the first landscape advert I found, which is on one of my other posts. I think this is a much more interesting look, and allows you to be more creative with the layout.

After doing some research on landscape magazine advets, I came across this Britney Spears one for her album "Femme Fatale." Once again I really like this one, as I believe it can be more creative and eye-catching. The advert itself can  generally be bigger, and could possibly go across a double page spread. I think this would actually be more effective, because it means there is more for the audience to see and attract their attention. It follows all the typical aspects that the potrait adverts have and the  paramore one has, such as an image of the digipak being cooperated into it. but it is just on a wider scale. 

The last one I found, has a very different type of image to our artist, but it still provides a good example for a landscape magazine advert. An addtional thing I noticed after looking at this advert, is that the image used does across the whole double page spread, and the same applies for the Britney Spears one. I like this idea, because it makes a bold statement of whos album the advert is advertising.

Conclusion

After going into more in-depth research, I have established that there are quite a few magazine adverts around which decide to do it landscape. When creating our ancillary task, I believe me and my group should attempt this, as I feel it looks much more interesting, and it would allow us to be more creative.

Magazine Advert Drawings

DRAWINGS BEFORE IN-DEPTH RESEARCH

Above were two quick sketches that I found that I had done before in-depth research. The idea was to give a rough idea of the type of magazine advert me and my group are planning for. Here is what I was thinking at the time:

 We like the idea of the background being blurred as it gives the impression of time passing by without our protagonist female being fully aware of it- she is in her own little world of alcahol and drugs. We are unsure of the type of background we will use, because it has to be affective but still relate to the person- which is what we saw from the Rihanna adverts; she always seemed to be in front of a graffiti wall, which gives us an idea of what her life was like. (Seen Below)

The two locations we are deciding between is a road/street that we have used for our filming or a rough looking park which will give the viewer an idea of the storyline.

Here were some additional ideas that we came up with. The first drawing is a vareity of ideas Sarah came up with, which follow the same idea- they show some of the storyline, but are still quite suttle. The second image is a quick photoshop thing we did, so that we could portray a clear image of what we want. We will not be using this background or this image, however it brings our ideas together.

Magazine Advert Research

To get an idea of what we may do for our magazine advert, I looked at a variety of different popular artists to get an idea of what things we could put on ours.

Jessie J

Rihanna

Paramore

Conclusion

After carefully looking at three different magazine adverts I noticed that they all have similar aspects. These are:

• Name of the band and name of the album.
• A consistent font throughout- which is always seen on the album that they are advertising.
• A clear link to the album- ususally looks exactly the same.
• Images of companies associated with the artist.
• A colour scheme- which once again links to to the album.
• Other popular songs which are on the album, are highlighted to attract a wider audience.

Some additional things I noticed which are not all of them are:

• An image of the album.
• The actual advert being landscape instread of the typical portrait,
• And lastly, an additional image of the artist or band.

After researching this, I now havea clearer understanding of what me and my group might put on our album adverstiement.  

Construction of Digipak: Changes to Behind the CD

After recieving class feedback for our digipak, we agreed that our class was write and that we should make some changes to behind the CD. They suggested that we continue to play with the idea of "Elle" and her signature, so we decided to write "Love Elle, X" on it in her signature, as we felt that this made the artist seem more down to earth and normal- which is the type of look we were going for.

The font we used to do this, was the font we used on the front cover which was "Viner Hand ITC." We chose this font as it looked quite personal and hand written, so this actually fit in very well for what we want to do for behind the CD.

To do this we simply created a textbox and wrote the words "Love Elle x" in it. Originally, the words were completely straight, and we did not like this, so we click "Transform" and then "Rotate" to slant it, which we liked a lot more.

Here is what the final product looks like now:

Class Feedback For Digipak

To get an idea of what we may need to improve for our digipaks, our class and teacher sat down and looked at our digipak, so that they could give some feedback. We had not put the spine up, but the class analysed it anyway. Some of the positive comments they said was:

• The colours were good and were consistent throughout the whole digipak.
• They liked the font we used for her name "Elle", as they felt it looked like her signature.
• They like the photograph, as they felt it looked quite proffesional.
• Also, they liked that the background for it was very plain which ensured that the image stood out- which was important.
• Lastly, they liked the constant theme oft he lips and how we had made them stand out.

However, there was one criticism that they had. This was that:

• They felt that our idea for behind the CD, was quite plain and boring compared to the rest of the Digipak. We went for a plain blue background, as everything else was quite over-crowded, but they suggested that we just have something simple on there, such as the signature "Elle."

We appreciated these comments, so me and my group got together and decided that we would change behind the CD, as after carefully considering it- we agreed.

Class Feedback for Rough Cut

To get an idea of what improvments we may need to make for our video, we did a lesson where we all sat down and watched ours and the rest of our classes video. They gave us a variety of good feedback and improvments that we will be taking on board.

Positive Feedback:

• Good variety of camera angles.
• Good actors- they were very believable.
• Cutting was good to the beat of the music.
• The use of different colours for memory scenes were affective.

Improvements:

• When "Elle" is walking down the stairs, it is unclear what she is doing. As in her house she has three steps and then more steps, and we showed her walking down steps then walking a bit further and then walking down the other steps. The class did not understand this, so it will be something we will change.
• Can not see the text on the phone, because of the sun, so re-film this bit.
• The "ignorance is your new best friend" needs to be re-filmed, because the actor looks like she laughing.

All these improvments are very valid and are things we considered ourselves, so we will definitely be re-filming these to get our final cut.

Rough Cut

Here is the first draft of our final cut.

Editing: Adding Effects

After looking at previous music videos, I noticed that sometimes music videos use certain effects to either portray a story, a feeling or just to make the video more interesting. Therefore, me and my group decided it would be a good idea to do this too, as it would make the overall music video more appealing and make the storyline easier to understand.

1) The first thing me and Sarah experimented with was the "colour replace" tool. We believed that with this we could make a scene much bluer, as this colour is associated with coldness and negative feelings- which is what the character is feeling at the moment we chose. However, this tool made some parts bright blue and some parts of the clip not, so we decided against this effect.

2) The other thing we wanted to do involving effects, was to make specific parts of our music video a different colour to indicate that this moment is in the past. After looking at our research we found that the most common colour used here is black and white, so we used the "black and white" tool to create this effect. This not only shows a memory, but because this colour is not as lively it emphasises that these times were a lot more calm and neutral.

As you can see in the video "Tik Tok" by Kesha, the black and white effect is used to show the moments she is remembering from the party the night before.

So here, we have used the black and white effect- when our character "Ellie" is remembering a bad moment from her relationship.

Editing: Cuts and Transitions

To make our music video more smooth and more like the music videos of our time, we editied so that there was a variety of different cuts and transitions. Once again this could only be done by using Adobe Premiere, so this is what we used.

After previously doing my own research on cuts and transitions, here are three things I found out:

• The cutting is usually done to the beat of the music.
• Fades and different transitions show the passing of time.
• Cuts and transitions can help create the mood of the video.

1) The first thing we did was through trial and error, and it was that we decided to use the "Cross Dissolve" tool to slowly blend two shots. Through research, I found that this is commonly used, which is why we decided to use it for our one. It was neccesary to do something here, because there was a time difference, one shot was from the past and the next from the present.

2) The last thing we decided to do here, was fade the film at the end. We tried to do this slowly, however, the way we made the film meant that the film carried on longer than the actual song to add an impact of the girl being thrown out. So a long fade here would not work and would make the song ending too long. So we decided on using a short fade. Another issue we had was that the length of the music video was too long when we exported it, because it made it the length of the song before we had cut it down. To cut this down we dragged the "marker" closer to the end of the film, meaning there was just a couple of seconds left when the song ended for us to create the impact of Ellie being thrown out of the house.

Editing: Fixing Problems

We noticed that there were some general problems with our video, that would take long to change by re-filming, so we decided to see if we could edit these via Adobe Premiere. By doing these changes, we wanted to ensure that we could:

• See the clips clearer, to guarentee maximum viewing.
• And to make sure that the lighting and colour was consistent throughout.

1) The first thing we did was "Image Control" which involves making sure there was no difference in look in all of our shots. In some scenes the camera was quite blue, but then in some the colour was quite orange and bright. To solve this we used the "image control" tool to reduce saturation levels.

 As you can see from these two images, we changed the saturation so that the clip was lighter.

2) The next problem we noticed was that one of the shots was a lot darker than the rest, as the camera was facing the window, which meant the figures in front of the window appeared dark. To do this we used the "brightness and contrast" tool to lighten the shot. However, when adjusting this we had to make sure that we did not change this too much, so that it became too bright.

3) We decided that the look of the shot still was not quite right, and we found that the "Gamma correction" tool had near to the same effect. So we used this for the same shot to make the clip brighter and easier to see.

4) Lastly, for the clip where Ellie burns the photograph, we noticed that when we change to the shot where they are taking the photo on the phone, the photo was in a different view which meant that Ellie and Harry were on different sides. Me and Sarah felt that this did not link that well so we did the "Horizontal Flip" on this to turn the clip around and match the photograph in the next clip.

Construction of Digipak: Spine

Lastly, to complete our digipak we had to create a spine. From my research I discovered that the spines are pretty simple and tend to just have the name of the artist and the name of the album. So we wanted to go for the same thing and not over complicate it.

1) The first step we took was to get the shape of the spine. We measued the height of the album and then predicted what the perfect width would be. We then used the eyedropper tool and selected the background of our front cover and then used the fill bucket to fill in the background of the spine.

2) Next, we used the text box tool to add the information we wanted on it. We used the exact same font and colour again to write "Elle" and "Ignorance" to ensure that all the different sections look linked.

3) We could not decide if this looked a bit too plain, so we tried to add some black dots on either side of it, as we have done this with the contact information. However, after careful deliberation, we decided against it.

Here is the final product:

Construction of Digipak: Back Cover

CONSTRUCTION

For the construction of the back of our digipak, we decided on what aspects we liked best and then put them altogether to create our back cover.  Charlotte took it upon herself to create this also with our groups input. Here are the stages we went through to get our back cover:

1) The first thing we did was too pick the photograph that we liked best and then edit it to try and get the same type of image that we created on the front of our digipak- which involved changing the brightness, contrast and vibrance. We went with a photograph which was in the same clothing, as we felt this would create a theme, like all the other digipaks.  We then put the credits and images of different companies associated with the artist and digipak, as this was what we saw on the Digipaks we researched into. For example, we put vevo on there, as this is constantly seen to show the audience on websites like youtube the different artists music videos. We then placed the barcode on, because this is what is seen on all products that can be purchased.

2) The next thing we did was create a variety of different song names, as this is what is always seen on the back of a digipak. We created songs that would sound like they would fit in with the genre of music we are doing. We then decided on the font, we should write this on, so we went for the font we used on the front cover, so that it all links. We decided on the colours red and black for this, as the red is prominent throughout with the lips and then the black is on her dress.

3) The next thing we did was too add a set of links, which are associated with the artist, so that people can accesss more information on them. On the other albums I looked into it was websites such as myspace and facebook, which are very popular, so we felt this would be best for ours too. We chose the font that linked well with the rest of the digpak and also the colour black- which continued to create the theme for our digipak.

4) The last thing we did was to try and fill the space up in the top right hand side of the area. We tried different things, such moving everything around and using different shapes on the paint brush tool to try and fill it in. However, we decided against it, as it didn't fit in with the theme and simply did not look right being there.

4) UPDATE: A few days later, me and Sarah Biswell looked back at this and we decided that we wanted to change a few things. We noticed that the image was too bright and it did not look like the images for the rest of the digipak. We also decided we wanted to make the image larger, so that there was less of a gap in the corner. So we editing the image by changing the brightness and vibrance, and then enhancing the image and moving everything over. Here is what it now looks like:

Research of Digipak: Back Cover

RESEARCH & PLANNING

Before we started the construction of the back of our Album, I looked at a variety of different albums to try and get an idea of the type of things that we should include on ours. I looked at three artists who I felt related best with our music video and artist "Elle."
Here is a presentation of what I found out:

Construction of Digipak: CD & Behind the CD

RESEARCH & PLANNING

For our CD and behind the CD we once again looked at Rihanna and Kesha for our inspiration.  It was noted that these two pieces linked to the rest of the Digipack also and they were also quite simple- there was either one image or there was a background with the name of the person or the name of the song.

As you can see from the Kesha one- the theme of gold and black is continued and also the font is continued too- which shows continuity throughout and makes it recognisable from all angles. For behind the CD they usually have another image or they have a simple background which compliments the CD.

The same can be scene for the Rihanna one. There is a constant theme of pink and red and then the rose- so for the CD they have simply made it a pink rose- which is simple yet effective. For behind the CD they have continued on with the image that was on the inside of the CD so they did not have to worry about doing something different for behind the CD.

CONSTRUCTION

After carefully looking at these examples, we experimented with a couple of ideas to see what we would like best for our digipack. As our actors lips are a prominent things throughout the front cover, the inside and our music video- we decided to expermient with this. We tried just having the lips on the CD like Rihanna just has a rose, however, this did not work as the lips were small and when they were enlarged it did not look right. We then took the name of the song and placed it on the CD like Kesha, which looked very plain so we put it all over, but we did not like this either. We then decided to incorporate these two ideas together and still use the lips but put these all over the album- which we thought looked the best and was most effective.

For behind our CD we agreed on a plain blue background, as we thought anything else behind it would make everything quite confusing and busy, and would make the lips less effective.

Here are the final products: