Reflection on Progress (Overall Evaluation)

I have found that throughout this course I have progressed from start to finish. I found that I have taken in a lot more considerations this year than I did previously. For example, I have got way more feedback this year from my audience which is good because it has helped me improve all of my products and it has also helped my knowledge develop. Now that I have gained all of my feedback from my audience I have realised I still could change a lot about my final product even though I followed the feedback they gave me previously and this is why I feel as I have developed so much and that is because I have gathered a lot more different opinions this year than I decided to do last year.

I believe that with most of my work I have gone back to it, refined and developed it, and I have also changed my approach to creating my video and my ancillary as the course has progressed.

Reflection on Progress (Ancillary)

I have found that my Digipak and my Magazine Ad was quite successful. I believe this because it followed the same style of the genre and it done this by the conventions in which was used in order to create it. I found that it linked to my music video very well as the same conventions which were used in the video were used in the ancillary task. I found that my Ancillary products will appeal to the audience due to how well it does link to the music video, for example, there are black and white shots throughout the music video and in the ancillary task, I edited the image so the performer was in black and white.

Three improvements:

1.  I did some research into the ancillary tasks but I believe that I could have looked it into a bit more to try and make my product as perfect as possible.                                                                                           
2. I believe that I could have looked at some more digipaks so next time I should look at a wider range of digipaks instead of just a few.                                                                                                               
3. Even though the audience said they liked the magazine ad, I believe more could have been added to it so it looked a bit more professional.

Reflection on Progress (Construction)

I found that now I have completed my video and now that I have edited all of my clips together, it is clear that I have made a massive improvement as time has gone on. I believe this because I managed to change my work to suit the genre more and I did this through the feedback which I was given from my audience. When I Showed them a rough cut of my video they gave me a list telling me what I could have improved and I went away and acted upon this. One example, they told me and my partner that we needed a better opening and closing shots, we then took this on board and managed to get a range of different shots and put them together so it really showed we knew the genre.

Three improvements:

1.  I need to make sure that I now focus on my digipak and my magazine ad and look at a range of different ones so I know what will relate to my genre and what won't.                                                                                                
2. I need to make sure that I continue to gather feedback from my audience because I need to make sure I know what they think of my ideas.                                                                                                                       
3. I need to look at a range of different font types so when It comes to creating my Digipak I know what style is best to go for.

Evaluation: Part 4

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is really important because we got to find out what the audience liked and disliked about our music video.I got multiple feedback from my class from my initial screening and my rough cuts. The feedback which I got from the class mainly consisted of good comments relating to how I and my partner managed to fit many different conventions into our music video. In the feedback video below, it shows how we did stick to the conventions of our genre and it also contains some points on what we could do to improve for next time. I felt as if all of the feedback we were given was very useful from start to finish of this course.

Another way I gained audience feedback is by putting my media product on Youtube, the reason I did this was because millions of people access a range of different videos daily. I also put the youtube link on my facebook page and asked for some feedback on what they thought of it and some of these are shown below.

Feedback from Social media

Calum Buckley (St Brendan's Media student) - Locations were an excellent choice to film in as it followed the genre correctly. I think that the props you used were a really good choice because it gave more of an edgy feel to the whole video and these helped boost the conventions within your music video.

Overall, the audience feedback tells us that there is some room for improvement but most of the music video linked well with the genre and the right conventions were used throughout the music video. There were only a few minor issues with the music video which is things such as the lip-sync was not 100% perfect and we expected this to come back and we know for that next time we should make sure it is completely in sync.I felt we could have added in some narrative, maybe some part of a drugs deal or a stabbing as that reflects on the genre, a lot of the grime artists use graffitied locations which we also used and it fits the genre.

Magazine Advert

We got a range of different feedback comments on what our audience thought of this magazine Ad. The audience thought that this product linked really well with our music video due to the graffiti being used in the background and the performer on the front being in black and white. This links to the music video because in the main chorus and the start and end of the video everything is in black and white so it shows there is some resemblance. However, some feedback has said that there is not really a point to the angel wings and that the words "Phenomenal" should not be written in pink, but if they decided to pay some attention to the graffiti behind in this shot both the blue and pink comes from here so they link together.

Digipak

Our digipak got some relatively good feedback from everyone in which we asked. They said that they liked how both the front and back covers link together which is follows the same style as any other digipak. Our audience thought that in future we should have kept the two photos at the top the same style because the filters don't really go with each other so it makes it look slightly more unprofessional. Although, the top right image would look good as a front cover, but we felt as if the other images had more meaning to them.

Magazine Ad

This is the final design for the magazine advert for the album. I got the ideas from different other magazines Ad's and how they linked with the album cover really well. I did not want to put a lot of text over all of it because I felt as if the image lost a lot of meaning to it. I decided to stick with the same background as I used for the digipak which helps relate to my genre really well.

Evaluation: Part 3

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

Blogger -  I have used Blogger.com a lot throughout this year. Blogger has allowed me to record all of my information which I have obtained. Blogger allows you to embed content onto the posts which you create and through this I have put multi-media platforms onto them such as "Slideshare" and "Prezi" and "youtube". It also allowed me to post images onto my posts and I used this to show potential actors,locations and props.

Photoshop - I have used photoshop to mainly create my digipak and my poster. I found this software useful due to the separation of the layers so we could edit it a lot easier. You could also open more than one project so you can see everything you have done easily. I found this really helped when creating the digipak because I could hide layers to see if there is anything I could change on the layer before it.

Video Editing - We used Final Cut Pro when it came to editing the music video together. We made use of the editing filters and transitions when it came to constructing the video. We used a range of fast-paced editing, and different filters to help fill conventions during our music video.

Camera - The video cameras we used were Pentax K-50 and also Nikon D7000 which allowed us to get high-quality footage and be portable at the same time. These cameras allowed us to attach lighting to them in order for us to get more successful shots. We used the cameras to get many shot types, including close-ups, long shots, and tracking shots. 

The Internet - The internet was used mainly due to it being where we did every task. The internet allowed us to gather resources when it came to planning our projects and it helped us gather information of other artists and media theorists. I mainly used google as my web browser when it came to gathering information.Google maps was a great help when it came to looking at locations of where I could have possibly filmed.

Apps and Social Media - Social media sites were for things such as communication during our project. When myself or my partner gained successful footage or had any rough cuts, we would send them to each other to see what they thought and we did this so we could get feedback from each other.

MacBook Pro - Having to use technological resources such as Photoshop to create my ancillary texts and Final Cut Pro to make the video, I used my own personal MacBook Pro and the use of school facilities to do some research. Both I and my partner had access to Final Cut Pro, so we both could continue editing either alone or together.

Briefly describe how you will incorprate synergy into your three productions

In the three productions, we are producing and developing, we have decided to use things such as graffiti walls and dark clothing which link to synergy in which we are using in all of the productions. We decided to film against numerous walls which were covered in graffiti because this would suit the conventions of our genre. During the music video, the performers wore completely dark clothing and this also helped bring in more conventions of our genre. We saved time by taking a range of different photos of our performer during filming the music video and this not only saved some time but it also got us some photos we could possibly use for either our digipak or our poster. So overall, we decided to use the same colour layout and the same visual ideas for all 3 productions.

Evaluation: Part 2

When it came to planning my products, we had to plan to try and incorporate synergy into our products. Synergy means working together to achieve an objective that couldn't be achieved independently. So when it came to creating my music video and my ancillary texts, I decided to do things to make them link together. For example, I kept things such clothing and colour styles the same. This can be shown in the images below.

The black and white effect is used both in the ancillary text and it is also used within different parts of the music video.
The font which we used for the ancillary text was curved, black and white and also a very urban text. We used this font because it links well with the Grime genre and it also looks like graffiti, so by having it in black and white made it link to shots within our video and the style of it linked to graffiti.
Our music video is quite fast paced, especially in the second part of the video and background also shows this from graffiti going all over the place in multiple directions. 

I believe that our target audience would be very attracted to both our music video and our ancillary text. I believe this because the demographics show that our target audience ranges from the age of 16 to people the age of 24. I believe that they would be interested in both of these due to how realistic we have made the video. We had thought about, location, clothing, the range of props and the performers expressions throughout our video. The locations we chose all had relation to our genre, for example, we filmed in the town centre which contains huge pieces of graffiti everywhere. We also filmed in Easton underpass and this location links to one of the more violent places to be going to in bristol. The performers did a really good job to make it look like they were a part of that genre, they did this by the body language and emotions they were using during filming. Also, the clothing in which they were wearing is important to the genre as it helps to build that idea of mise en scene. In my opinion, I think that the clothing is important as it allows the audience to relate to the artist and it seems a lot more realistic from the clothing that they are wearing. We made sure that our performers wore dark clothing during filming and this gave more of an urban feel to the shoot. Overall I believe that our target audience would appeal to our music video and ancillary text due to how much it links to the genre.

Digipak

1st Screening of the Music Video

This is the first screening of our music video. I believe that there are a few things which could be improved. For example, there were some shots of our music video where the lighting is not the best and we had to add some effects to it to try and make it look better. Nearly all of the performance was perfect, however, at some points, the lip sync was not the best so we used a range of editing techniques to help make it better.

Rough cut of the music Video

This is a rough cut of our music video. We showed this to the class and gained some feedback on what we could put in to make the video have a better structure.
Things we could improve on:

• Beginning and Ending of video - one thing which could be improved is by having an intro which introduces the genre and a performer. The ending could also be improved by having a performer concluding the video.
• We could also have a better editing technique to the video in order for the clips to work better with each other.
• There are also some shots which could be changed due to them either having a slight blur and the lighting is not the best.

Evaluation: Question 1

Ancillary Text 1

Possible photos for the digipak

This is one shot we got which could be used for the digi-pak. There is a lot of things which could be done to this shot to make it a lot different. For example, one thing which could be done to this image is the changing of the colour of the whole image except the graffiti which is shown on the wall behind. 

This is another shot which we could use for the digi-pak. This is a good close up of our performer. In this image, we can see the performers facial expressions and this could be a good image to edit around and use as a front cover.

This image of our performer has a lot of room on the side to maybe have a song list next to him. This image could also be put within the Digi-pak and be edited so that it was a different colour to the front and back cover of the Digi-pak.

This is another image which has our performer with a good location shot which links to our genre. If I wanted to I could use this image just as it is and maybe change a few colours in the background, or I could even cut the performer out of the image and put him on to another location.

Even though this image is not entirely in focus and does not have a good location, there is a lot in which can be done to it to make it a lot better than what it is. In this image, the location could be changed so that it looks a lot more like a grime photo and this can be then used as a front cover for the Digi-pak.

Other possible Photos: