BYEEE

Since the beginning of A2 I've tried really hard with keeping up to date with all my work. Having my amazing group along with me has made it a lot easier, and a lot more fun!

Throughout this whole process i don't think i have felt unable to achieve anything having such supportive people by my side, although during filming at times it was difficult (through the freezing degrees and Davids stupid comments) we pulled through and actually created a great piece of work.

Im sincerely thankful to my whole group and it has been a pleasure to work with such fun amazing people where their was never a dull moment.

 THANKS GUYS :)

Sorry about the photo David, you weren't in the chipmunk one but i didn't want to leave you out! :)

Final Post - Outro

Final Post - Outro

I have enjoyed this project as it has allowed me to develop my media skills further and also experiment with new techniques. There has been ups and downs in my group but working with these lot has been fun and crazy, but it's all friendly banter. It has been a good experience and let's hope that I did well enough to pass! 

Evaluation - Question 4

Evaluation - Question 4

Evaluation - Question 3

Evaluation - Question 3

Outro

I must say since September I have been working pretty hard to pull this off, however I feel that my group express true teamwork and together we have had alot of fun when filming, but not so much fun when it came to the editing process. 

We found the editing process rather challenging.. this is how we felt...



Media by aa58430 on GoAnimate




 
I feel that we found the editing process quite difficult as there was so many new editing techniques that we had been introduced to, therefore incorporating these was a challenge. However, I once we finished our video we felt enlightened and proud that we had succeeded and that it had come out the way that we wanted it to. 

Whilst out filming we found that there was always a problem...


"The light has run out..."                                                       "I want to film!"
                                                          "I'm hungry."

                         "It's too cold, shall we just go home?"
 "I'm tired"                    
                                                                                      "The memory cards have no storage"

Despite the clear anguish and pain that we had felt, we soldiered on through rain, wind and cold. All determined to reach our goals!

I have enjoyed working with my group they have been relaible and committed which are all apsects of a great work ethic. Moreover, I was often embarrassed when I had to sing along to the track (I am no Whitney Houston).. I appreciate they did not feel the need to laugh at me, although David could just not help himself sometimes. 

Overall, this experience has been a lovely one and I am honoured to have worked beside these frantic people. 

ONE TEAM, ONE DREAM. 

 

Evaluation Question 4

EVALUATION QUESTION 4

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

On Tuesday 10th December me and my group set out to watch our music video at a small independent cinema on Upper St, named The Screen On The Green. It was here where we got to watch our own and fellow candi students music videos. To begin with everyone was really nervous and was anxious to see there final product, but as it got into the swing of things the anxiety turned into excitement. Everyone was really supportive regardless, after our video was shown we received a big round of applause with a few cheers which was really nice to hear as we had spent so much time trying to perfect our music video, because of this i believe overall our music video turned out to be a success. 

Im now going to analyse a comment received from another candi media student about our music video.

Unfortunately the video feedback i received from Orrie (another candi student), had technical difficulties when uploading and as it is deadline day when I'm currently editing this post there is nothing i am able to do :( sorry! 

Orrie- 'I liked how it was clear that each verse had a different location, and i liked the use of the blurry lights you used throughout'- After hearing Orrie say this, i believe it shows our synergy has already been successful as she noticed the bokeh lights throughout our whole video. One of our main aspirations besides illustrating synergy was to successfully make the three locations we used relatable. By Orrie saying 'it was clear that each verse had a different location' makes me believe that we managed to succeed in doing so. Our target audience was 15-25 year olds and by Orrie picking up on two of the most important things we had included shows that me and my group chose our target audience right.

Orrie-' if i had to say one thing you could improve on it would be the lighting in the first few shots possibly but thats it'- Orrie pointing out the darkness of the first couple of scenes isn't a surprise. Throughout our whole time filming we tried to get the balance between a nice warm light and seeing Molly enough for it to be clear (while still being able to see the bokeh lights in the background). We tried to resolve this by using colour corrector, changing the brightness and contrast and even using a filter. However none of these things gave us a solution, therefore we had no choice but to leave them as they were.

If i was to change/improve my product, it definitely would be the lighting just like Orrie suggested. I would plan a lot more before hand, and make sure we had enough batteries for the Dedo lights in which we used. I found that when filming we would film a scene and the lighting would be perfect, but when it came to filming again a few moments later with the same light it would have dimmed. This resulted in different lighting brightness throughout our music video.

We also asked some other candi media students about what they would expect to see within our ancillary products.

Drew-'The girl looking out,dark back drop'. By Drew suggesting this point, i think having a dark backdrop would link in with our music video really well (as our music video is filmed at night).

As we can see I did happen to use a dark backdrop, i think my idea of Molly being infront or Bokeh lights (which again is our synergy) is a really good idea. However personally my skills on Photoshop lack a lot, this resulted in me finding it quite challenging editing my work. Overall my front panel didn't come out as id liked it too, but i think the idea behind it is really strong. In terms of using a dark backdrop, i believe it would also have worked with a slightly lighter one as it could represent the variation of lights and colours which featured in our music video.

Below is the Font Panel to my digipak

Einas-'something to do with lights'
Einas like Orrie also identified the use of lights within our music video, therefore she suggested we do 'something to do with lights' within our ancillary. Above we can see that i tried to incorporate our synergy (bokeh lights) as effectively as possible. Although individually within our group everyone created their own unique digipak, they all still feature bokeh lights.
-Having both Orrie and Einas pick up on the use of lights throughout our video shows that as a group we managed to successfully illustrate Goodwin's theory of amplification (where an image is recurring) as it shows the recurring shots of lights stood out to them, and was an aspect they remembered.

The audience feedback i received shows that although my digipak is flawed, overall i think it appealed to the right audience (15-25 year olds). The suggestions that were made were valid, however on photoshop it looked slightly clearer, therefore the font wasn't as hard to read.

In conclusion I've learnt that my ancillary work did appeal to the right audience and had a clear idea of what i was trying to achieve in terms of synergy. However it could be improved and if i was to do it again i would change the opacity of the overall front panel so it contrasted less and blended more to make it look more realistic. I would also use a different photo of Molly that i took which would be one where she is not wearing a patterned t-shirt but a lower tone like the one i used in the advertisement :).  

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation - Question 2

Evaluation - Question 2

Evaluation - Question 1

Evaluation - Question 1

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

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2 from sophielarkin

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation- Question 4

Question 4:

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We went to the Screen On The Green an independent cinema in Islington to watch all of the A2 music videos. On the one hand, I was anticipating seeing the fina product of my music video and then on the other hand, I was nervous to hear the feedback that my video would receive. It was rather daunting seeing my face on a hige screen and not too flattering either, however the round of appluase that my video gained at the end did boost my confidence a little and I felt that our video was a success.

Video 

After the viewing I then asked my fellow peers Drew and Einas for their comments on our video and what they would expect to see from our Ancillary Work...

Drew- "I couldn't fault it" (video)
Einas - "I liked the out of focus and in focus"(video)

I took this audience feedback into consideration as they only commented on positive aspects of the video, I looked at it in more detail and thought ...If I could change anything what would it be? I feel that the beginning shot of me walking as it merges into the timelapse maybe the camera could pan upwards to show the artists face and then continue into the timelapse. I feel that this would create a better introduction for the artist and for the location. Moreover, I feel that one more location could have been added in just so that we could have abit more variation, as through the editing process we understood that there was quite a long instrumental between the first verse and the chorus, therefore we could have added a variation of shot here. Although, I feel that we have filled them well despite this.

Ancillary

Drew- "The girl looking out...dark backdrop"(ancillary)
Einas- "... something to do with lights"(ancillary)

Drew's suggestion about a "dark" backdrop was valid, however I wanted to portray the colours of the lights. Therefore, I used a pink, purple and white colourscheme to symbolise the flamboynat city lights. Moreover, I do feel that a darker backdrop would have worked just as well due to my video being shot at night-time it would have linked together well. Einas' comment shows that she spotted our use of synergy within the video, therefore I feel that my response to Goodwin's idea of Amplification was recognised; the recurring image of lights merging with the mid shots of my face affected the audience and left them thinking about these particular moments in the video which is what we wanted to acchieve. I felt it was appropriate to use a social networking site to target my core audience and get their postive and possibly negative criticisms on my work.

 
 

  

 

I used Camtasia to record the comments I received on Facebook when I put my work on there for my friends to see as most of them fit the audience criteria 15-25 year olds. I received postive comments, however some people suggested that there should have been more tracks on the back and the social media icons to be more curved round the edges. The comments were mainly positive and they thought the images I used were expressive, therefore I feel quite confident about my ancillary work. 

Evaluation- Question 3

Question 3-

How did you use media technologies in the construction ans reserach, planning and evaluation stages?
Here I have put together a Prezi which will give you an insight into how I feel media technologies have assisted me in producing and creating both my music video and my ancillary work.

Evaluation- Question 2

Question 2:
How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak and advertisement)? 
 
Here I have used slide share to answer Question 2 of my evaluation. Enjoy!

Evaluation- Question 1

Question 1: In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Here is a video describing how I have used Goodwin and Vernallis' theories in my
work...



VIDEO INFLUENCE:

During my researching period I came across three videos that influenced the choices I made when producing my video and ancillary work.


CeeLo Green 'Bright Lights, Bigger City'-

The video views the artist as the narrator and the performer. Although, I feel that the video follows Carol Vernallis' theory of a narrative structure, moreover the events taking place in the video mirror the lyrics of the song "Bright Lights" ..."Bigger City" and CeeLo is literally driving through the city he lives in. However, although the video is set in America I wanted to capture the views of Southbank within my video.

The use of Bokeh Lights is prominent within the video and this is where my original idea sprang from as they follow Goodwin's idea of amplifying an image and having it as a recurring motif throughout the video. Therefore, I felt that this method would be ideal when incorperating synergy within my work. The use of opacity editing is also used in CeeLo Green's video, which is a technique we use within our video. This also helps illustrate the concept of our video, showing the girl in the city she lives in, as well as introducing the artist in terms of her background; living in London, enjoying the night life.

 

For the inside of my Digipak I have used an image where opcaity editing is used within Photoshop. I felt this was important to show aspects of the video within my anciallry work so that they visually link. Which is a convention I have recognised throught the work of artosts such as Olly Mur's and Pink. 

I used bokeh lights to merge with an image of the artist as I felt this simply sums up the video, I chose not to merge the whole of both images as the front cover of my Digipak shows this and I wnated to show some visual distinction between the inside and outside of the Digipak.

Coldplay 'Every Teardrop is a Waterfall' 

 

Within Coldplay's video I found that it was visually interesting. The beginning of the video features a timelapse of the sun coming up over the city and I found this effective as it provides the audience with an insight into the setting of the video, making it either relatable by using recognisable loactions. I thought using a timelapse within our video would help our audience feel involved as they would recognise iconic buildings; the BT tower and Central London. David also found a convenient place to film this, which was high up so we could view the whole city-scape. As opposed to Coldplay filming the sun coming up, we decided to film the city getting dark as our video was set in the evening to view the night-life and lights of London.

<-- Coldplay's timelapse





                                  Our timelapse -->











The other reason I enjoyed this video was due to the number of basetracks they used, there were three in total which is the number that we decided to use. Moreover, in Coldplay's video the location remains the same, however they use different parts of the building to show variation. I feel that this is successful as the audience can recognise that they are in the same place, as opposed to filming in two opposing locations. I wanted the locations in our video to be iconic, also the audience would be able to recognise if we had filmed basetracks outside of London.

 I chose to follow the conventions of music videos in terms of keeping the locations accessible and using them in different parts of the video. We used the Walk between London Bridge and the Millenium Bridge (1st verse/ Chorus) , on the Millenium Bridge (2nd verse/Chorus) and Liverpool Street (Final Verse) to film our video. 

Disclosure 'F For You'                                                    

 

Disclosure are a band who create House music which is the genre I wanted to replicate within my work, as well as form my artist around this genre. The performance of the duo is very stripped back and does not involve any dancing and only minor gestures are shown within this. As our song choice is from Disclosure it was important that we attempt to identify the key conventions which apply to them as artists.

• Costume- The costume that Disclosure wear are shirts and jeans which are casual wear. However, as our artist is female we understood that Costume choice would be different. An artist who we felt helped us style pour artist was Katy B. Our audience being 15-25 year olds put them within the aspirer market, this meant that clothes from the highstreet would be appropriate as they are reasonably priced and easily accessible, so that if the audience chooses to view our artist as an 'idol' they could access what she wears. 
  
   
• Filters- The use of filters can be seen in Disclosures video as the saturation is very low, causing it to be black and white, they then rely on the lights to provide a sense of colour in their video. However, as our aspect of synergy is mainly to accentuate bokeh lights, we wanted to keep our video in colour. We decided to experiment with filters on Final Cut, without finding what we wanted, we then turned to colour corrector to alter and make our video look more professional, as well as highlight the aspects of synergy. 
  
  Moreover, my ancillary work also demonstrates the illustration of bokeh lights. On Photoshop I began to edit the images and used a liduifiying effect to make the bokeh lights more prominent in the background.
  
  The costume used for my ancillary relates to Disclosure wearing shirts/ casual wear as this fits with the audience being aspirers, therefore on the promotional products it is important to show a sense of accessibility to the audience. Moreover, I chose to play with the brightness/colour of my ancillary work as I wanted it to look visually appealing.

Conventions - Have I challenged them?

I feel that I have abided by most of the conventions of the House genre; using disjuncture to form my video, amplifying a certain aspect of the video (lights) and discarding any type of vigorous dance. However, in terms of my video I recognised that House artists rarely identify themselves on their Digipak and Posters.

 

(Chase and Status)                                                          (Disclosure)

I chose to challenge this convention as I wanted to show my artist in her neutral way without using graphics to illustrate the video. This was due to the limited time we had to Produce and Create the media products and I was nbot experienced in making an graphic based video. Moreover, a female house artist is hard to find and bringing a new, up-coming one with images of herself on the covers would immediately state who she is and that she aims to target an audience of aspirers. 

Overall, I feel that my media products have a unique sense about them and I have displayed the various theories of both Goodwin and Vernallis within my work. The researching process allowed me to find out the conventions of the House genre and I could also alter and play about with these. 

Evaluation Question 4

Question 4
What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After our cinema viewing and a lively reaction from the audience, we watched the rest of our year groups music video and left to get our feedback. We asked two people to give feedback on what they thought of our music video which included the genre of music we chose and on our artist. This feedback was really important to us as the people in our year group were the main group of people that we wanted to target, and that we wanted to relate to the artist. We wanted to know if we would have to change anything that didn't make sense to our audience or if a part of our music video didn't match the genre or artists look. 


Drew & Einas - Feedback 

Drew said that he could not find a fault to our video, which makes me feel as though we picked our target audience perfectly and we provided a music video, and artist to match our target audience perfectly. Our core audience was for younger people around the age of 15-25. We definitely wanted our product to be relatable and this is why we picked this age range.
Einas said she liked the lights in our video which was great to hear, as that was the focal point of our synergy and it did not go unnoticed. Our blurred lights was something that we really wanted our audience to pick up on and our audience showed that they did.

Drew also made a comment about what he thought our ancillary products should look like and he thought we should have a dark background, which shows a link to our music video, and with our artist looking out towards the camera. I think all of our digipaks are different in some way, but we all kept our lights synergy constant and they all have the dark background that the audience thought they would see. 
Einas' comment about the lights is also something we all took into consideration and we kept the lights as a constant part of our synergy in different ways.

For the front cover, I wanted to show the bokeh lights which was our focal point of synergy, also I wanted to use a picture where the lights were obvious on our artist. There is also a  dark shadow and quite a dark background on the front and back of the digipak.

For the inside of the digipak, I changed the colour scheme slightly with a gradient and focused on light colours inside of actual lights. I thought it would have the element of surprise for the fans who would actually buy the album and see a different side of the artist. 

For the advert, I kept the colour palette slightly the same as the inside cover for continuity. 

Ancillary Feedback

After showing an audience member, of our age range, my ancillary products, I asked for her opinion and feedback and here is what she said.

I was happiest that she picked up on why I changed the colour palette on the inside of the digipak. She said the work looked professional which was also great to hear along with the obvious link between the album cover, and album name.

Evaluation Question 3

Question 3

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

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak and advertisement)?

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1

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

                   

Evaluation Question 1 from olamide95

finished ancillary work!

I have finally finished all my ancillary work! Although i am still not completely happy with it, there is nothing much i am able to do to change what id like to! 

HERE THEY ARE :@

Front Panel

Advertisement 

Back Panel

Finished Ancillary Work

It's taken forever, and I have changed my mind around 100 times, but I think I've finally finished all my ancillary work which includes the inside and outside of the digipak, and also the advert.

Outside 

I definitely wanted to use our same theme of bokeh lights for my front cover. I used one of the photos from our projection shoot for the album cover. In photoshop, I simply changed the levels and saturation of the picture and brightened up the picture. I didn't really retouch the picture as I wanted Molly to look natural instead of false and made up. I looked for different fonts and I couldn't find any that I thought went with Molly as an artist, or with the genre of music that she was representing. I checked FontBook and found 'Avenir Next' which had a variety of sizes within the font and I chose the thinnest one. I thought for a long time about what photo I would use for the back and I didn't think any of them looked appropriate so I decided to continue the lights on the back as well. 

 Inside

I changed my mind about the inside many times and I thought I wanted to keep the lights inside for a sense of continuity but I thought it would be too specific and boring. I searched for how to do a colour gradient on photoshop and I chose different light colours for the inside. I was heavily influenced by Ellie Goulding's 'Halcyon Days' album which also had a gradient all over. My opacity is low so you can still see Molly clearly and I kept the writing white on the CD also.

 Advert

I used slightly the same colour palette from the inside of the album cover for the advert and the same picture for continuity. I felt as though the gradient was a great alternative for a simple colour background, or a picture that I would have to crop, colour and resize. I used the same font that I had been using from the album and I carried on using white for the font colour. There is a twitter and Facebook icon to show the social networks she is on, and a reminder to show the audience they can download the album on iTunes. 

Production- Finished Ancillary Work

After attempting to finish my Ancillary Work countless times, I have finally succeeded. At the beginning of this project I was new to Photoshop, however after experimenting with the various tools I now feel like a Pro YAY!

Outside Digipak Panels:

Inside Digipak Panels:

A5 Poster:

Production- Conventions of a Digipak/Advertisement

The idea surrounding an artist promoting their new album can be viewed through synergy. The Digipak and the Advertisement incluse aspects of synergy from the music videos which are then projected on the promotional items.

 

Pink uses the same font which is seen on her album cover and now appears in her yric video for her track 'True Love'

Olly Murs uses the same colour theme displayed on his album cover: Red, Grey, White and Black. This can be viewed through the colour of his costume in his video 'Troublemaker' which is a track from the album. Therefore, it can be recognised that colour scheme is vital in allowing the audience to identify what promotional items are from which artist.

Production of A5 Poster

Here is my design please excuse the poor art skills but the positioning is accurate of how I want my poster to look. 

For my poster I wanted to base it on ones I had seen in magazines, such as TimeOut which is famous for advertising new, up-coming artists of all genres. Moroever, I have also used 'Q' and 'theguardian' to review my artists album as it markets to a wider based audience, although it has a specific genre it may intrigue people to have a listen.

I also wanted to mirror the outside cover of my album and add social networking icons, this is also relateably to our core audience of teenagers to young adults, so they can keep up to date with our artists work and events. In order to make my icons look professional I use a toll on photoshop allowing me to keep the curved outline of the icons.

          
Throgh recomposing the image it allowed me to highlight the parts of the icon I wanted to keep using a brush toll, and then the parts i didn't want to keep (the white outline) i highlighted with a red brish. This then converyted the image to be curved and professional looking on both my album and my poster.

Another requirement of my ancillary work was to keep the font the same as the Digipak which was Lao MN, to ensure all adverising products looked relatable. Moreover, the colour scheme also stayed the same as I used an image which provided the bokeh light background. 

Production of Ancillary - Changing the Background of Logos

Changing the Background of Logos


When I did some research about CD adverts, I noticed that some adverts had the iTunes and Google Play logos. I decided to include them in my advert because I thought that music today is more viral rather than physical. I looked up some pictures of the logos on Google and used them for my advert. When I placed them onto my advert, I didn't like the way they looked because of the background the images I got already had. I wanted the background to be the same as the one from my advert. I didn't know how to do this using photoshop so I did some research on how to do it and this is what I found. I then did it on photoshop and then it successfully worked. I was happy with the result.

This is how it looked after editing it:

Production of Ancillary - Ancillary Work Peer Feedback

Ancillary Feedback

I asked my colleague for some feedback about my ancillary work. This is what she had to say...

Conventions of Ancillary work- production

Within Olly Murs digipak, we can see aspects of synergy in which he also used in his music video. This makes it easy for the audience to visual identify and recognise a link between his products.

As we can see from this photo of his album cover, he uses quite similar colours in tone. Black,White and a variation of greys. He is smartly dressed and is wearing braces. 

If we now look at his video for troublemaker- 

We can immediately see a visual link between the colours he used on his album and in this video, lots of grey, black and white is continually used throughout this video. Within the video he is also smartly dressed and wearing braces just like on his album cover. All of these things contribute to the audience identifying what promotional products are from Olly Murs 

Production of Ancillary - COMPLETED DIGIPAK AND ADVERTISEMENT

Final Ancillary Work

The images below show my final ancillary products.

Front Cover Panel

Inside Cover Panel

Advertisement