Question 4 Evaluation

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

Throughout the A2 project of making a music video I had to learn how to use new technology and develop some of my original skills with the use of technologies. A lot of these technology's have been useful within the construction, research and planning stage. This is something that I'm going to be evaluating in this essay. 

YouTube
When researching and planning the music video I found YouTube a great source to use. This is because it allows you to search artist, songs, or the lyrics into the search bar.

When finding a song for the research and planning stage YouTube was a very big help because it allowed myself and Erica to watch or listen to original songs from actual You Tuber's. This is where are actual song "silver lights" by Drew Tabor for our construction actually come from. A lot of the YouTube clips that myself and Erica used where for research and planning stages towards our music video. E.g. the different artist that we found online were YouTube artists which mostly influenced our coursework. We mainly used YouTube as our main source for research and planning. The good thing about using YouTube is it allowed us to research into similar artists. Ways we found this would be by typing one of our main artists "Eliza Doolittle" clicking on one of her videos and then scrolling down to the side bar where it comes up with "similar artist" or " related searches". What this does is, brings up similar style artist. This helped a lot throughout my research and planning because it took me to artist I would of never thought of in that category genre. 

When I actually went onto Drew Tabor's official YouTube Page - It had a side bar straight away suggesting other related searches... Which came up with another band Cimorelli, This is one way how we got our other research for instance the costume choices or mis en scene places. 

We used YouTube a lot  through out the use of research and planning stages for our coursework such as viewing videos for different interpretations and influences. YouTube is a massive inspiration source for Erica Hall and myself. Most of the bands that we looked at and researched into were some YouTube artists. Overalls YouTube is a website where anybody around the world could watch your videos you upload - you could instantly by 1 video become a massive YouTube inspiration. Aka "famous - in the land of YouTube". This is also why we decided to upload our final outcome to the music video on this website. Uploading to YouTube was a big help within the evaluating process because it allowed myself to quickly type into the search bar the title and our video would come up straight away. Making it easy and beneficial to use.

Blogger
Throughout this year and last year of our media course we had to make a Blogger account to blog our work that we have been doing throughout the process of research, planning and filming. I actually enjoy using Blogger because its very easy to navigate around and quick and simple if I need to look back at when commenting on my work. Blogger is basically an online internet diary where you update weekly about the process of your filming or any new ideas you've had. I started using Blogger when I started the course of Media in 6th form. Ever since then I have been using it and developing my skills. Blogger overall has been a main source throughout the project.

The times I used blogger would be when I was typing out evaluations or wanting to save work onto my blog so I could look back at for the planning stage. I used blogger frequently throughout the researching and planning process. I've become comfortably confident with navigating around Blogger now because of developing my technique throughout these 2 years.

When i would gather research I would always post it on Blogger add notes... Then when I needed too I would look back to it and see What I suggested. This influenced mine and Erica Hall's way of working alot. 

MagazinesWhen thinking about different magazine articles. I actually looked at alot of the magazines websites because they came up with different sections.. Its better because its more digital and technical which links in with seeing how they make a magazine come to life on the internet. Magazine articles that influenced the final outcome would be "NME" -  NME WEBSITE  (Click here for the website) When working on the digipak (ancillary texts) such as the advert and digipak the magazines were a very big influences on inspiration. Such as how to capture the right photo in the right place using lines of 3. Where to place text.. How to make it eye catching for an audience. Another Magazine website I looked at would be  Q Magazine (Click here for the website) - Looking at both of these magazines really helped alot during the ancillary text part of the course. Furthermore developing technology skills such as using YouTube again for developing techniques with Photoshop.

PhotoShop and Premier Pro

Without Premier Pro or Photoshop myself and Erica wouldn't have a final outcome to a music video of any of our ancillary texts. Being an Art student I already have a basic Knowledge of Photoshop and using Premier Pro last year helped alot more this year because their was alot more cutting to be made.
Photoshop helped during the whole process of making the advert and digi pak. Which looks something like this: 

Photoshop helped create the professional look towards our ancillary texts.texts. They're were constant flows of the same color quality throughout our work due to the color balance we choose such as changing the contrast and brightness then sharpening some pictures to make them look a little better quality. All of these different techniques on that software helped create the final professional slick outcome for our Digi pak and Advert. The advert I think overall would be my favorite part of of the ancillary text it looks pretty professional and something you would most likely see advertised on say "Spotify" - the new music browsing app for technology on the go.  

For Premier Pro Erica and I took it in turn to have an equal share of editing time. For instance we both had input and did different clips. When using Premier Pro Erica Hall and Myself only had a basic understanding. We didn't really know much about the editing techniques or the different transitions we could use. However after experimenting this year with the use of the different color balances, slow mo and transitions we were able to adapt our skills and knowledge alot more This is partly due to the AS course last year, we never really experiment with the use of transitions as well as we could, However this year we decided to change the speeds of some making it more of an emphasis and then we also got to use different transitions and effects. Premier Pro is always hard to get around I think but once you have about 20 minutes on it you can just work it really quickly. That's also a good thing because we had to re-shoot alot of our footage however when we came to editing it didn't take us that long at all because we knew what we were doing. This was an advantage because it meant we had more time on digi-pak and advert stuff with photo shop. 

Camera's
Filming our Music Video meant that we had to use the school video cameras and take other equipment such as - tripod for different shots. Erica Hall filmed the whole of the music video because I was being the star image throughout the video... Also Erica Hall took the photos. However we took loads of random ones to see how to take better quality for instance - using macro for close up shots like this... We realized that macro is for more zoomed in shots.. however it did work pretty well on this photo and captured the great HD Quality. Which is exactly what we wanted.

The video camera we used for filming our music video was a "Panasonic HC-V10 digital video recorder". I already had a basic understanding on how to use a video camera due to last year when making a music video, however this year allowed myself and Erica Hall to really develop our skills and gain more confidence. I think overall our footage this year was alot better than our opening to a horror film. You could clearly see that the quality was alot more better and in focus. The digital video recorder actually allowed us to zoom in on close ups and was very easy to use and navigate. It has an effective high definition quality which is great because we want our audience members watching the music video to feel happy watching instead of finding it difficult to see the footage. Overall the outcome of the footage was to a high quality standard that myself and Erica wanted.

The camera we used originally didn't take great photos so we used a different one called "Lumix Digitial Camera" It had the perfect quality for where we were setting and it focused quickly and clearly on different parts which made it alot more easier in the editing process. When taking the photos we were constantly thinking about the grid lines that the camera gave us.. This meant it was alot easier for us to use the rule of 3 when snapping the pictures. We always made sure that we used it in every picture so the total focus of each one was on different parts of the picture. I think the quality and the rule of 3 were strong points within our photos. I also think we had the benefit too of being art students which means we have a big more background knowledge when it comes to taking good photos because we did a little section about how to work the camera settings better. Which is great because it gave us that advantage when making the digipak/advert I also think this is why we feel like our digipak looked alot better than what we thought because we had more knowledge and skill about the software we were using.

When looking into social media networking sites the first place we decided to distribute our music video too was Facebook, Just because it reaches our target audience range and allow's people to share the video around. For example the new app called "Vine" has been a massive hit on Facebook and people seem to be sharing new videos everyday. This is an easy way to gain likes and fans towards the song and to help create alot more views on our music video. When we shared our music video we were expecting about 3 likes.. However we gained more and alot more people commented on our post that what we actually thought. This goes to show most people actually do look at the videos that you post and shows that they're willing to watch, Furthermore our audience that we wanted was mainly aimed at girls and half the people that viewed our video were actually girls which suggest that we hit the right age and gender when sharing this online.

Overall the question of this evaluation is basically asking, how did we use these technologies, I think overall from this evaluation it is clear that I know how a confident understanding. I usually mess around with the technical side of things when it comes to finding new websites to use... I'm constantly finding new websites that could help or influence. I picked up using certain software easy wand quick which kept up this speed of professionalism within mine and Erica's group. I think I now know I have a better understanding of whats what and how I would use blogger or a different website for a certain research and planning method. Since starting media. I've found other blogs and websites that could be used. I recently joined with blogging on Word Press and pick up how to navigate around this because of using blogger. It's very different but it was easy because I had that knowledge.  I think without any of this knowledge or any of these technical equipment that we used as sources I don't think our video would be as strong as it is watching it back. A lot of the inspiration and influences came from the internet through YouTube or other websites. All of these sources we have used have combined together to create our music video. 

Question 3 Evaluation

“What have you learned from your audience feedback?”

To create my music video myself and Erica Hall had to at least come up with a focus group or a questionnaire that people could full in and feedback to us with. Erica Hall and myself decided to go with the focus group session and a questionnaire. We decided that we wanted to do both this is because for our focus group we wanted to mainly sit down and discuss opinions with people we wanted to aim our music video at for instance girls in their teens. Furthermore that allowed us to go a little wider with the age range for the questionnaires.

We mainly focused on the focus group because it allowed us to explore and have fun. We were given the opportunity to sell the song off to the target audience and see their full reactions to the liking of the song. Erica Hall and myself immediately took a liking to the song when we heard it and being at the same age range we thought it was quite interesting. We had a sit down and discussion session about certain things these target audience members would like to see within our music video. Also what they thought of the song and how it made them feel.

All this information that we gathered was very important to us because it allowed us to narrow down to the right path for our music video. The feedback that was given within our focus group allowed us to actually find inspiration from other artists. in the focus group Kate said "It reminds me of summer or friendship" this helped because it allowed us to base our story line along this theme. We found out that our actual song had hints of "Eliza Doolittle" style within it because this is what the focus group also told us. This helped us find an inspiration source for our music video and to pick up different tips along the way to the planning stage of the music video.

 Having this kind of feedback helped us learn that our style of song had to have an upbeat happy atmosphere furthermore a lot of the people that listened to the song actually ended up saying the exact same thing as myself and Erica did which is great because we pictured the video being fun and quirky. Our main aim when we heard the song was to really make it a summer time vibe and give it the perks of friendship. This is great because a lot of the feedback that was given matched our ideas and themes throughout the music video. Furthermore the questions we asked our focus group would be what kind of artist were similar. This is good because when the feedback we got was Eliza Doolittle this helped a lot when researching into songs. When watching Eliza Doolittle music videos and looking at the different codes and conventions within her music videos we realised that this is the kind of theme we wanted to go for and also target our audience at to.

We decided on a questionnaire too; however we linked this in with our focus group when we did an audience reacting to the song we picked. It felt very professional to do both also reading our questions on camera meant that they had to give out proper answers which was great because we didn’t get any silly comments or fake answers it was just their thoughts and general opinions on the songs and some ideas we had already selected. They're many advantages and disadvantages when it comes to questionnaires. This is because people sometimes don't give the honest answers, they'll just full it in with alot of false answers that aren't what the question says. Sometimes people cannot be bothered to fill them in which means its left to marking whatever they feel randomly. Sometimes people can lie the whole time. This could actually effect our final outcome to a music video by aiming it at the wrong target audience or by selecting certain aspects which didn't suit the codes and conventions. Furthermore the advantages to this would be we could have a wider range audience, including boys and girls, maybe older people. People can be blunt and straight to the point whereas having a focus group people could become camera shy and clam up not knowing what to say. However doing a focus group would be perfect because you get expressions/ facial reactions to the song, honest answers because its like hot seating. 

When filming, we took on everything that was given to us from the feedback. To make sure it suited our target audience’s needs. This is good because when planning the storyline we wanted to make it match what the audience wanted this is because we wanted to have the audience participation which would make them want to watch the music video in the final product. The feedback given from this wide selection of the audience helped us narrow down our findings and helped move and direct us into making the music video.

In addition to this it wasn’t just feedback from random people that helped us with the overall outcome to our music video. Fellow members within our class helped us too because when we first did the edit of the music video we had a lot of negative feedback's of room for improvements. A lot of the feedback that was given was great because it meant that there was room for improvement and it would allow us to move up higher within the marking band too. When asking our actually media class they were very critical but in a positive way. We played the music video to then when we finished playing the video to the audience the feedback that we got was:

• The glare of the sun was distracting and this meant we lose concentration on what’s actually happening in the video”
• “Some of the footage was the same, this isn’t bad but I think it would be better if everything was different”
• “two people lip-syncing and only one voice “
• It’s enjoyable and funny to watch
• The mood/vibe in your video comes across very good

After the feedback that was given Erica Hall and I discussed the negatives and positives and decided that the best thing to do would be to re-film the music video again making the improvements that the rest of the class gave for our feedback. The good thing is that we didn’t have to change the theme, narrative or story line in our music video. This is because the class watching the music video actually found it enjoyable too watch. They laughed and caught onto the song which meant the music video and the lyrics were catchy to sing along too. It made an impact on them because watching their facial reactions they were all smiling along and laughing at how funny it was or how enjoyable it is.

We decided to re-film for the benefit of our footage. The footage that we had taken was actually okay however it could be a lot better facing a different way so they’re aren’t the constant sun glares reflecting across the screen. This made it uncomfortable for the viewers which meant it was harder to see the footage that we had taken. This is negative towards our overall first out come to the music video because it means people watching wouldn’t have bothered to want to watch the rest of the music video if they know it already looks like this way It could become a bit annoying and upsetting for the audience to watch because it’s constantly in the middle of the screen making it harder to see.

When re filming the footage we made sure that we checked the angle of the camera making sure we wouldn’t get any reflections/sun glares. We also made the improvements of not letting Erica sing in the end clips… She found this hard to do so we had to actually block movement so she would forget about lip syncing. This is because only one voice is heard throughout the whole song. It actually did make a lot more sense if only one person sang it.

We also tried to come up with a lot more footage then we already had because before the footage was kind off the same which makes it more boring for the viewers to watch because it becomes very repetitive. Which isn’t fair because the mood of our video needs to be upbeat, cheesy, smiley.

The feedback that was given after we edited the footage we took was this:

• Was funny and enjoyable to watch due to the mood being positive made us feel the same way”
• “ the fact that it is sunny and the glare has gone adds to the warm mood”
• “The lip-syncing is spot on”
• “one part was a little jumpy but this could be because it’s not exported yet”
• Made me feel happy and wanted to smile throughout the whole thing
• facial expressions were big cheesy grins
• it makes you want to get up and sing or dance around with them.

This is exactly the kind of feedback we wanted. I think when we re-filmed the music video it made a lot more of a difference. This was due to the fact that everything the audience had said from the feedback given we applied to our actual final outcome. We wanted it to match up with what they wanted. This is because it would make them enjoy the music video a lot more, due to the fact they had their own opinions and feedback which they wanted to see in the video.

I have learnt from my audience feedback that it’s always important to ask suggestions such as gathering a focus group before you start to film.. Asking them questions. With a focus group there’s more chance that these target audiences would give a honest answer because they have to speak. Whereas having a questionnaire there’s always the problem of them answering with silly comments. We focused a lot more on the focus group then the questionnaire, because you can actually gather the target age and gender you’re thinking more off and see their facial reactions and hear their views.

 Without the feedback we had been given I think we would still be stuck with the first footage of our music video. Whereas we wouldn’t have these improvements or better comments if we would still be using our original take of the music video.

Furthermore when we were asking for feedback on the ancillary text’s it seemed that everybody mainly did like the digi-pak and advert. Comments made on the poster and advert were:

·         It looks very slick and professional

·         Synergy used throughout all 3 – music video, Digipak and advert

·         The colours are bold and it stands out

·         You can see what target audience it targets at

·         The codes and conventions of your theme come across strong

·         The photos are good quality and good focal point

·         Maybe think about the text bubbles.

This is great feedback for the ancillary part of the course because it means were editing in the right ways the only things we need to think about improving would be the text and speech bubbles we had used.  People in the class said it looked okay however maybe it was a bit to much because it was effecting the pictures we had used.

This meant re editing the Digipak/advert because we used both on each… We decided that we would change the opaque/opacity using the Photoshop tools. This makes it fade into a see-through object instead of a massive glow. This is good because when we changed it and asked for more feedback one person said that “It looked like clouds” – This is great because it matches the summer feeling that we wanted.

After we had completed everything. We uploaded the video to YouTube, Shared it on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. This is great because a lot of the target audience that we aimed our music video at were teenagers. Teenagers are the main people that these sites target at. Its good because we got a lot of feedback likes, retweets, favourites from all the posts that we put out. This is good because it meant that we were advertising it right and sending it to people to get more views. Advertising it this way allows us to have that interacting with the active participants commenting back and forth. Its good because it allows us to see how many people actually enjoyed our overall outcome. It allowed us to actually speak with people from the internet to get their honest views and opinions which it seems like most of the people that watched generally enjoyed our video by the feedback that has been given over social network sites.

Twitter Interaction 

Facebook Interaction

Overall I feel without this kind of feedback we wouldn’t have this kind of improvements that has been made for our work. It helped improved I feel and make it better. I feel like our re film looked a lot better. Without the feedback at the start with the focus group/Questionnaire we would never know what stuff to plan or what to add into our music video. I’ve learnt that audience feedback is very important when you are making films or music videos. This is because if you don’t listen to what Theyre saying then you could eventually get the wrong outcome to what the audiences wanted to see.