Evaluation Question 4

Question: How did you use Media Technologies in the Construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?


Construction:
 A Tripod was used to keep the camera sturdy and still while the shots were being taken, the adjustments allowed for various shots such as pan shots and tracking shots to be taken easily. This helped us to make our shots look professional and to keep out the shaky image that you get when taking hand-held shots and improved the quality of the video.

  A connector cable was used to connect the video camera to the computer so that the clips could be transferred onto the computer before they were edited, this made transferring incredibly easy and hassle free and made the process of getting the files onto the computer a lot quicker so we were able to get on with the editing as soon as possible.



 Hans G HL229 is the model of computer that was used for the editing of the video. The computer worked better than I thought it would have, although it did freeze occasionally whenever I saved my work but it always fixed itself within a few seconds, other than that there were no problems with this computer

 Sony Vegas was the editing program that was used to edit and create the final version of our music video. The software was difficult to learn at first considering it has lots of shortcut keys and tools that can be used, but once the basics were learnt adapting from there became easier and easier. Using what we had learned from the program in AS allowed getting used to the program to be a lot easier than if I had just started using it for the first time although I did learn new things this year such as how to add multiple effects onto the clips and how to change the speed of a clip. The only problem I had during the editing process was that at one point a handful of clips had been deleted randomly, thankfully the clips were easily retrieved and were backed up on the computer just in case the incident were to happen again. This program allowed for our video to have a good quality and the amount of editing that was done was incredible for the final version and making sure that everything fitted was an easy task with this program.

 Photoshop was used for the duration of our ancillary tasks. Thankfully I have already got some experience using this program through my photography course so using the tools and shortcut keys was not a problem for me although this was the first time that I have ever used the other tools for something other than adding filters and effects as for creating the album digipak and advert I had to use a lot of the drawing tools to make certain aspects transparent. I also learnt how to change the perspective of an image which has come in great use during my time using it and had allowed for me to make certain elements of the digipak and advert more interesting such as the daisy petals that are shown to be floating through space. This program can be difficult to learn at first if you're new to it but once you start to gain some experience with it everything becomes far more simpler.

 
Research and Planning:

Again the Hans G HL229 computer was used in terms of hardware which was used for the internet to gather information about our target audience and to access the software used to store the information (such as Microsoft Word etc.)

 The Panasonic NV-GS500B Camera was used to film our target audience interview which allowed us to get a more in-depth look at our target audience and to see the more personal qualities and interests that they had, the camera is good quality and was easy to use and relatively simple to use the controls.


 Google was the search engine that was used to search for our target audience information as it gave responses that were near exact to what we searched for and gave very useful links throughout our research, giving specific websites for articles and blogs that gave plenty of information which we could use

Prezi is a more advanced version of Microsoft Powerpoint that is based online and allowed us to present our research of our target audience and analysis of videos and all other forms of work that had been done. It is very detailed and was quite difficult to learn the controls at the beginning but once the basic controls are learnt the program is incredibly easy to navigate around and has enabled various pieces of work to be made with it.


 Blogger is the main site which we used to record our progress throughout the assignments, updating on what ideas we had for our video, posting all of our research and other findings and taking through the updates and ideas of the ancillary tasks as well. Blogger is not my preferred blogging platform but it is incredibly easy to use and hasn't shown me any problems throughout it's use.

Evaluation:

Throughout the evaluation stages, My personal laptop was used (which is an Acer) to access the internet and alternatively blogger and prezi to create and post the evaluations as well as the Hans G HL229 computer at school which was used for the same purpose.

Evaluation question 3

Evaluation Question 2

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

Our Music Video:


What it's about:
The video follows three people through their unfortunate events as we see the video go through how bad things can happen to literally everyone and that there is always a silver lining, and that things do get better. There is a mass of irony included in the song as the overall tune and melody to the song is quite happy and upbeat throughout the entire song, so it's difficult to tell when the song is depicting a sad moment or a happy moment, which is why we've made it easy to tell in the video.

The video follows through with these three characters as we each see the bad times they are living through the majority of the video and nearer the end-as if a kind of conclusion- as we see their stories brighten as the silver lining of their events come into play and their life gets better and we see this throughout all three of the characters as they all get a somewhat happy ending.


How does it tie in:
The overall feeling to the song is quite down and depressing after taking the lyrics into consideration although the mood changes dramatically at the end in the video with the scenes showing things getting better for the characters. We had made sure this was known so that our target audience can feel that they can relate to the video, that if they have a problem or are going through a difficult time, that things will get better and that there are people around them that are always going to be there to help even though you might not notice them until you need them the most. So our target audience that are having problems will turn to music to express their feelings and it is important for both our Digipak and Magazine advert to reflect this.


Our Digipak:


What it shows:
Our digipak is designed around the artists original album that the song came from "Daisies of the Galaxy" and we have done exactly that and have based the albums images with images of galaxies (I chose purple as a base colour as it's a colour that represents finding peace of mind so it is a good colour to use to relate to our target audience) and have literally placed a daisy with earth being the centre on the front cover, and daisy petals looking as if to be floating through another galaxy n the track list page. The CD holder is a larger version of the daisy used on the front cover image although without the earth in the centre and the inside leaflet page being images from some of the left over clips from filming that might have had the actors laughing during a take or general shots from the footage.

How does it tie in:
The idea of having the earth in the center of a daisy among space for the front cover and the petals floating through space is to literally link to the name of the album Daisies of the Galaxy, however the inside covers (the CD holder and the leaflet page) of the Digipak don't link to the album so much in the fact that the leaflet page is only stills from the video and the CD image is just a daisy. The Digipak is made so that the target audience will have their attention caught by it in the sense that they can see the mood that the album cover will be representing. As mentioned, Purple is a colour that links to finding inner peace so people who see the cover will feel that they can relate to the feel of the album or that it would be something that they would buy and listen to so that they can hear the songs that might express their emotions etc.

Evaluation Question 1

Making the Poster

For the poster, again, following the theme of Purple space, I found an image to use for the background (to allow for brand identity to be used)

I then added the two daisies that were the main focus for the advert, with one of the daisies being full on the right side, and the daisy on the left with the petals floating about the poster.

I then added the text, the Artist name at the very top of the poster with the album title in larger text underneath it, and the release date (simply just 'out now') under the daisies alongside a small icon of the actual album cover considering the album cover and the poster are similar but not exactly the same but still slightly different.

Finally I added the information at the bottom which included the website/facebook page/twitter and the record label copyright and either side of the corners I've added the record company logo and the parental advisory label.

Making the Digipak

For the Digipak, I began by finding the base background images which for our idea, used space with a purple base colour. I also cropped out part of the bottom right image and stretched it across the guidelines to use for the spine of the Digipak

Considering that the album is called 'Daisies of the Galaxy' obviously using daisies as a theme in our Digipak was a must have, so going along with James idea, for the front cover is a daisy with the earth in the centre of the daisy, and for the back cover, daisy petals flying about, and also a large daisy is placed in the top left corner where the CD of the album would be placed

 

I then added the necessary labels such as the parental advisory label on the front cover, a barcode on the back and also the record labels logo above the barcode. Also on the inside cover of the album I added four screenshots from the album, some of them being out takes of clips that weren't used in the film such as when someone started laughing or a scene was shot wrong.

Finally I added the text for the Title, the tracklist and the legal information. The font I used is called Cinema Gothic BTN Shadow and I used this because I thought it fitted well with the theme of space what with the lettering being quite bold and standing out. At first I had a bit of trouble with getting the text colour right for the list of songs as black didn't really stand out well so I decided to copy the text and make the copy text white and over-layed it on the back text so that it had a sort of background to come off of and the text was more visible this way

 

Here is the final image of the Digipak

Poster Drafts and feedback

The first draft we had for our poster was similar to the inside CD holder with a daisy covering the majority of the poster, with the title and release date/information on the top and bottom of the poster.

The second idea we had was to have the daisies similar to the original Digipak cover which would have 2 daisies on the poster with a purple space background and one of daisies petals floating across the poster

We then got feedback for our two ideas and took a vote, overall the class decided that the second idea would be the better idea to use for our poster as it connected better to the actual Digipak which allowed for Brand Identity to be used.