Charlie Quirke, George Campbell, Stuart Deller & Taylor Goodwin
Thursday, 15 March 2012
Evaluation- Website
Below is the link to access our website.
http://www.all-saints.bardaglea.org.uk/media_cw/Ed_Sheeran/Welcome.html
http://www.all-saints.bardaglea.org.uk/media_cw/Ed_Sheeran/Welcome.html
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Evaluation-MTV music television (Evaluation)
Charlie Quirke, Taylor Goodwin, George Campbell & Stuart Deller
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Monday, 12 March 2012
Evaluation-Taylor Goodwin Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of real conventions of real media products?
Before we began making the music video we was set a criteria we had to meet this was to reinvent an artist of your choice and produce a professional music video to a pre-released song. We decided after much deliberation that the newly found popular artist 'Ed Sheeran' was a good artist to re-invent. Our finished product uses, develops, or challenges forms of real media products in many different ways using techniques that are found in a large percentage of highly professional music videos. One technique used that can be seen in real media products is the use of 'Green Screen Technology' this involves a a large space covered in a green background, by shooting a video in front of this 'Green Screen' we are then able to implement a picture or video of our choice as the backdrop of the video. This green screen can be seen when Aisleen is standing looking at fast moving traffic this is what the viewer can see, however the traffic is a pre-recorded shot and she is just standing with her back to the camera facing the green screen, this technology helps low budget videos such as ours still use professional techniques. We have used this to our advantage and to portray certain factors these include the passing of time, by having fast paced traffic it allows the audience to recognise the passing of time.
We also use conventions of real media products with the use of lip-syncing throughout all music videos lip-syncing occurs, due to artist in the current decade wanting to focus on getting the video spot on, they will mime the song then the pre-recorded track will be placed and edited in accordingly. Not only using this technique will avoid errors it helps the artist make the track sound better by using voice editing techniques to improve vocal performance. This technique we have used throughout the video, due to me playing the main character and my musical talents not matching those of the artist lip-syncing allows the audience not to only believe that I am singing but helps add that extra professionalism to the video.
Finally due to so many music videos and songs being released every month in order for them to do well in the charts and to gain maximum public viewing publicity is key. A main way that these artist gain publicity is by advertising on popular social networking sites and video viewing sites such as, 'Facebook', 'Twitter' and 'YouTube', these low cost ways of advertising generate the majority of the publicity gained. We therefore picked up on this technique and used accordingly which meant by advertising to friends and the public via 'Facebook' meant we was presented with ideas on how to improve and make the video better. By advertising on 'YouTube' meant that anyone around the world could access our video this therefore by word of mouth and sharing the link generated our views.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The main product and the ancillary texts are linked in various ways, the ancillary texts refers to the linking of the different products i.e almbum cover, website etc. The ancillary texts are linked in similar ways due to us wanting to portray the same image therefore using the similar house-style keeps the products looking similar thus people can make the link between the products. The image we tried to create for Ed Sheeran is that he is a lonely person, singing about the women he's lost in his life, we also wanted the image to show that we are using fashionable clothing creating an up to date image. By using this image we represented this within the music video, you can see 'Ed Sheeran' throughout wearing clothing that is up to date, and the emotions used by the actor tie in with the artists image. Another way we cominded the texts is by using my pictures within the different products, the audience will be able to identify me within the main product taking over the image of 'Ed Sheeran' therefore by using my pictures on the album cover will help give the audience the information to make the link.
QR stickers is a new technology which is a picture of a code, when the code is scanned via the use of a mobile phone then a webpage is produced. We used the QR sticker on the back of our album cover, when this has been scanned then the website prodcut is produced. This therefore directly links the products as the audience can switch between the ancillary texts, we also implimented the music video within the webpage which allows the audience to futher make the link between each of our texts.
What have we learnt from audience feedback?
Prior to the producing of the media product we needed to gain a background insight into current market trends and target audience. These both were established due to feedback from our audience, by specifically going up to members of the public we were able to realise our target market was 16-24 and that they like to see things such as up to date clothing, drugs, violence ect. By finding out information such as this it has allowed us to shape our video around what we know the audience would like to see, if we failed to listen to our audience then the media produced wouldnt be very successful. We decided to upload surveys to Facebook regarding background information about our media product, by using Facebook we are able to upload all our polls to our friends which are essentially our target audience so the feedback given is from people our age. We then decided to use YouTube to upload our videos, radio spot for our audience to view. By uploading this means they are easyily accessible from typing a URL in, we also linked our media product to Ed Sheerans video this allows people who are viewing his videos to view ours.
Finally we collated the feedback that was given to us from the different sources stated above, we were then able to pick our chosen genre, artist, target audience and most importantly know what they want to see. Once we found these details out we then implimented them into our product, thus getting our media project rolling.
Before we began making the music video we was set a criteria we had to meet this was to reinvent an artist of your choice and produce a professional music video to a pre-released song. We decided after much deliberation that the newly found popular artist 'Ed Sheeran' was a good artist to re-invent. Our finished product uses, develops, or challenges forms of real media products in many different ways using techniques that are found in a large percentage of highly professional music videos. One technique used that can be seen in real media products is the use of 'Green Screen Technology' this involves a a large space covered in a green background, by shooting a video in front of this 'Green Screen' we are then able to implement a picture or video of our choice as the backdrop of the video. This green screen can be seen when Aisleen is standing looking at fast moving traffic this is what the viewer can see, however the traffic is a pre-recorded shot and she is just standing with her back to the camera facing the green screen, this technology helps low budget videos such as ours still use professional techniques. We have used this to our advantage and to portray certain factors these include the passing of time, by having fast paced traffic it allows the audience to recognise the passing of time.
We also use conventions of real media products with the use of lip-syncing throughout all music videos lip-syncing occurs, due to artist in the current decade wanting to focus on getting the video spot on, they will mime the song then the pre-recorded track will be placed and edited in accordingly. Not only using this technique will avoid errors it helps the artist make the track sound better by using voice editing techniques to improve vocal performance. This technique we have used throughout the video, due to me playing the main character and my musical talents not matching those of the artist lip-syncing allows the audience not to only believe that I am singing but helps add that extra professionalism to the video.
Finally due to so many music videos and songs being released every month in order for them to do well in the charts and to gain maximum public viewing publicity is key. A main way that these artist gain publicity is by advertising on popular social networking sites and video viewing sites such as, 'Facebook', 'Twitter' and 'YouTube', these low cost ways of advertising generate the majority of the publicity gained. We therefore picked up on this technique and used accordingly which meant by advertising to friends and the public via 'Facebook' meant we was presented with ideas on how to improve and make the video better. By advertising on 'YouTube' meant that anyone around the world could access our video this therefore by word of mouth and sharing the link generated our views.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The main product and the ancillary texts are linked in various ways, the ancillary texts refers to the linking of the different products i.e almbum cover, website etc. The ancillary texts are linked in similar ways due to us wanting to portray the same image therefore using the similar house-style keeps the products looking similar thus people can make the link between the products. The image we tried to create for Ed Sheeran is that he is a lonely person, singing about the women he's lost in his life, we also wanted the image to show that we are using fashionable clothing creating an up to date image. By using this image we represented this within the music video, you can see 'Ed Sheeran' throughout wearing clothing that is up to date, and the emotions used by the actor tie in with the artists image. Another way we cominded the texts is by using my pictures within the different products, the audience will be able to identify me within the main product taking over the image of 'Ed Sheeran' therefore by using my pictures on the album cover will help give the audience the information to make the link.
QR stickers is a new technology which is a picture of a code, when the code is scanned via the use of a mobile phone then a webpage is produced. We used the QR sticker on the back of our album cover, when this has been scanned then the website prodcut is produced. This therefore directly links the products as the audience can switch between the ancillary texts, we also implimented the music video within the webpage which allows the audience to futher make the link between each of our texts.
What have we learnt from audience feedback?
Prior to the producing of the media product we needed to gain a background insight into current market trends and target audience. These both were established due to feedback from our audience, by specifically going up to members of the public we were able to realise our target market was 16-24 and that they like to see things such as up to date clothing, drugs, violence ect. By finding out information such as this it has allowed us to shape our video around what we know the audience would like to see, if we failed to listen to our audience then the media produced wouldnt be very successful. We decided to upload surveys to Facebook regarding background information about our media product, by using Facebook we are able to upload all our polls to our friends which are essentially our target audience so the feedback given is from people our age. We then decided to use YouTube to upload our videos, radio spot for our audience to view. By uploading this means they are easyily accessible from typing a URL in, we also linked our media product to Ed Sheerans video this allows people who are viewing his videos to view ours.
Finally we collated the feedback that was given to us from the different sources stated above, we were then able to pick our chosen genre, artist, target audience and most importantly know what they want to see. Once we found these details out we then implimented them into our product, thus getting our media project rolling.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the planning and executing of our media project we used various different technologies we not only used these for planning but for research which was the back bone of the project. The technologies we used ranged from online social networking to computer programs, these include: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Celtx, Adobe Premire, Prezi, Slideshare, Survery Monkey.
The main bulk of our project used premiere this was mainly due to this program enabling us to edit our video clips and essentially create the video. This program also let us add video clips, add text, sounds. By using these techniques helped make the video successful and professional.
We also used a program called Adobe Photoshop this program was responsible for the creation of album artwork, by using this program we were able to add photos and text then edit them together. This therefore was the main tool in creating pictures which represent the project which looked professional.
Finally we used YouTube this was the program we used to upload all of our videos, including our final media product. By using YouTube we are able to keep all of our videos grouped under one channel, which enables our audience to view everything we upload. Youtube also enabled us to uplaod our feeback videos, we can then use the feeback to improve our video in various ways.
Friday, 2 March 2012
Evaluation- Stuart Deller Evaluation
1 ) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
For our media A2 project our task was to create a music video using a song of our choice. Also, to go with the music video we had to create all the media that goes with a music video. Such media included: a website, an album cover and a radio broadcast. We were asked to basically re-invent the image of the artist who created the music video and broadcast this new image to a relevant target audience in which we carried out research to find.
Our media product in which we created we used forms and conventions of real media products to make the product as realistic as possible. This meant filming the video footage in a professional manor, using professional editing software (Adobe Premiere) in order to place such footage together and add effects the give the video that professional edge.
Following from creating the music video, we then went on to create a website which contained information about the artist and also featured a podcast of the radio spot in which we also created. The website also contained information about the pretend album in which we had to create for our media product. We used professional software (Adobe Photoshop) to create a cover for which showed the artists and had track details on the back as you would see on a real media product.
Other ways in which we challenged forms and conventions of real media products is by using lip syncing within our music video and also using green screen technology to add effect to our video. To use the lip sync, we filmed the main actor in the video singing along to the video and playing a guitar. This footage was then implemented into the music video but we took away the sound and then dubbed the song over the top of the footage and synced the sound so it looks like the actor is actually singing the song.
By using green screen technology we was able to create a scene where one of the actors within the video was standing watching fast traffic to signify the passing of time. This added a big effect to the music video because it also gives off the idea of an unrealistic world, where anything can happen when your inside this frame of mind.2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Within creating our media product, we recorded any of our activities, research findings and initial ideas for the media product via the use a media. We created an online blog using a social media website called Blogger. This blogging site allowed us to publish posts to put all of our research and findings into one place to look at what we had found overall. This also allowed us to highlight any issues we may have within creating the media product because we had all the research and findings there in front of us to help overcome such issues.
By carrying out and recording such research it led us to find what the target audience for music is, and what type of genre of music this target audience is listening to. By recording this information which we gathered from demographic websites and other data websites and also information we gathered from asking our peers questions etc which we also recorded and published within the blog so we could go back and analyse what our peers thought and what music they liked etc.
This meant we could put all the information together and plan what the final media product was going to be like. From this we decided what genre of music we was going to use and who was a popular artist at that time which led us to decide what song we was going to create the music video for.
The blog also gave us as a group a way of reaching out to such target audience by posting questions and online surveys on the blog and asking our peers to complete such surveys to give us an idea of what they think of the music video idea or what they thought of the final product as a whole etc.
Alongside blogger, we used other social media websites such as Facebook and Youtube to reach out to the target audience because we could post information and surveys and video on such website to allow others to view and give feedback on such information. This was a big help because it gave us the information we needed to create the video and the feedback to be able to make any changes within the product where needed.3) What have you learned from audience feedback?
We gathered audience feedback using various methods such as interaction via word of mouth or interaction via social media websites including Facebook and Youtube. Through word our mouth we carried out interviews with randomly selected individuals and asked them questions about their favourite music and favourite artists etc to give us an idea of what music genre and what artist we should use for our media product.
By using the use of Facebook which millions of people over the world use for social networking, we could all post surveys on our Facebook pages to reach out to all of our friends who were essentially the target audience. They could complete such surveys to give us again and idea of what to use for the media product and it also gave us a way to gather feedback on what this audience thought of our final media product.
Furthermore, by the use of Youtube which is a social broadcasting website which allows users to post videos online for other to view and comment on. This meant we could upload the radio spot and the music video etc for our peers and target audience to view and listen to and then post comments of their feedback of what they thought of the final media product.
By using these different methods of collecting feedback from our target audience we found out, what genre of music this target audience is listening to, what their favourite artists are and what they like to see in music videos. From this feedback we could create a media product giving such audience in a sense what they want to see and hear. Also it gave us a good way of interacting with them along the way to integrate their ideas and thoughts and take into consideration their feedback to improve the video and make it better. 4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
During the process of creating our media product, we used a various range of media technologies to research, plan and evaluate for our product. These ranged from computer software to online social media sites. Such media technologies included: Celtx, Adobe Premiere, Adobe Photoshop, Facebook, Youtube, Survey Monkey, Slide Share, Prezi. 
When we started the construction of the different aspects of our project we mainly used Adobe Premiere and Adobe Photoshop. Premiere was the program that we used to create the actual music video because it allowed us to add video clips and images and text and move then around and tweak them to create the video. It also allowed us to change and add audio etc to really add effect to the film and make it into a realistic music video. Photoshop was the program that we used to create the four sides of our album cover, and this program allowed us to add images together and add effects to create a blended image with text and effects to use as the album cover. Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Evaluation-Charlie Quirke Evaluation
1 ) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
our project this year was to to plan, design, and create a music video for an artist of our chose. We decided on the artist Ed Sheeran, and have decided to use his popular single "The A Team" it was our job to create not only a music video but to design and structure an intirely new image for them. By recreating their image, we would be able to make this artist appeal to a whole new demographic. In order to change the out going image of Ed Sheeran to how we wanted it we would have to use, and challenge common motifs found within the music videos of today.
When doing research for the creating of our music video, one way that we used common motifs, found in the music videos of today, is that instead of simply showing a narrative, we took on the challenge of lip syncing. This is used in many music videos to create a sense of comfort when watching, for the audience. It creates the illusion of live singing, witch adds to the idea that this is real life. It also puts a face to a voice, witch creates a personal connection between the singer and the audience by allowing the audience to see the singers facial expressions and emotions towards the song, rather then just having the singer as a 2 dimensional character that no one can relate to, as they do within the original music video. lip syncing is also used to create the illusion of story telling, witch instantly makes the meaning of the song lyrics more meaningful and personal.
One way in witch we challenge common motifs within music videos of today, is our use of setting. We were planing to recreate Ed Sheeran's image for a very specific demographic, witch was teenagers between the ages of 16 and 21. We kept this in mind throughout the creation of our music video. We decided to set our video in both a teenager's bedroom and a local park. This was done to make the feel of the videos very familiar and relatable, seeing these familiar environments would instantly set the audience in a sense of comfort, again creating a personal relationship between the audience and the singer.
One way in witch we developed common motifs, is through the use of special effects as a vital part of the narrative. The form of special effects that we used was "green screen" technology. We collected some footage of our actress standing in front of green screen and was able to create the image of fast motion traffic in the background. This was done to show the pass of time, but mainly to show how our leading lady has recently become under the influence of class A drugs. The Green screen is often used to create another reality, a type of dream world where someone feels that anything is possible. And it is this escape from reality that often attracts the common person.
2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
our intinal aim when re-creating this single was to re-create Ed Sheeran's image as a inde rock star, and inorder for this to be the case we tryed to create a similar feel and style throughout all ancillary texts, which in this case is the album cover, the webpage and of course the music video itself. Here you can see the album cover i designed to fit the new image we wanted to create for Ed sheeran, which was a rebelious post-teen rockstar who refused to follow any rules or pattons. as you can see the way every aspect has a different patton and style. It creates a very rebellious imagery, the way the text is written in a graffiti style or how the picture of Taylor is only slightly off the middle, or how the "A Team" text is not straight or uniform. It's as if this album cover doesn't follow any particular rules. This can make the entire image relate to our target audience that are modern day teenagers who naturally rebel against the generation before them, this is the exact idea and style we wanted for the webpage.
This is the webpage i designed to represent the new recreated image of our artist, much like the album cover, it was designed in every way to appeal to our specific target audience. As you can see we used a very specific style, that is to show a very familiar and reconisable to the other products we have created . The image of a Careless, rough, shown in an orderless, pattonless opening page. This webpage is aimed at the target audience age 16-21 year olds that are the most popular demographic for the music genre that we have chosen (indie rock). Moreover 16-21 year olds is seen to the public as the rebellious age, seen as scruffy careless and unorganised. As you can see, both the webpage and album cover portray the same style and imagery that we tried to create within our music video.
The blog also gave us as a group a way of reaching many agreements and ending many arguments between the four of, about who is doing what, and spreading out the work equally between four people. For example, our group member George, created an online survey not only for our blog but also to spread across many different social websites (youtube, Facebook etc) giving our target audience the option of taking the online survey, would give us the information we need to find out what teenagers are attracted to within our music video.
3) What have you learned from audience feedback?
With the target audience in mind we deciding on the artist and song we are doing, we needed to find out whether our song would suit the audience not only finding out demographics related to our project but to find out what people of our target audience like to see.
After analysing our results, of our online surveys, before creating our music videos it seemed to strengthen the idea that our artist is very popular, and the genre he represents is very widely accessed. Also we now have hard evidence that using a strong narrative will not only make the video have a much better feel but will make the audience be more interested. we initially chose Ed Sheeran as he was a very recognisable artist for our target audience. Ed Sheeran's popularity has sky rocketed in the last year and was, at one point, the most downloaded artist in the UK with his popular single 'the A Team'. Ed Sheeran's popularity only seems to be growing as this relatively new artist has all ready got a massive amount of loyal fans.
We have learned, rather predictably that our target audience of teenagers aged 16-21, responded to our video with great amount of positivity. One of the aspects that audience respond well to was the narratives used. There was a strong understanding there and, if you watch the audience reactions, you would see that there was a strong personal and feeling of sympathy towards both characters within the story as struggling love, drug and alcohol abuse where all relatable or understandable issues to the common teenager.
Fortunately, another aspect that responded strongly to the audience was the setting, witch had been planed sense the beginning. However not only did the audience respond to the setting as it was relatable and familiar, reaching the audience on a personal level but the audience also recognised how the outer city setting as a relation to the alcohol and drug abuse that also featured in the video. While the initial planning for still responded to by using a familiar teenager's bedroom full of destruction and lacked any order as well as the loneliness and emptiness of the local park that we used.
Finally, the strongest response from our target audience was for the several uses of special effects. Mixed in with the familiarity of the setting and the relatable situation of the music video narrative, we included three different simple forms of special effects, (green screen, disappearing man and cloning). All three were designed to allow the audience escape from the harsh reality of the song and may create a slight idea that nothing is real and so there is always hope, this aspect often attracts audiences, and they seemed to watch it with joy and amazement.
4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
When we moved onto the actual construction of the several aspects of our project we used a number of different programs from Adobe. The first was the program "adobe Photoshop" that we used to create the four sides of our album cover, and this allowed us to see cut, paste, edit and add texts and effects to any pictures we could up load. The second, and perhaps the most essential program that we used was "Adobe Premiere", this was the most important because it was the video editing software that we used create the music video. Premiere gave us the abilities of cutting and editing together all the footage that we got as well as using a huge variety of transitions for each clip, this software also allowed us create two of the special effects clips within our music video, we were able to dissolve to different clips together to show a disappearing man, and the cloning process.
We used YouTube during all stages of our production. we used it for all the stages of our project, it was vital for all the videos we made, (interviews, vlog post, music video etc) because it was the only way to make all our stages to our target audience, as well as being able to post all our videos on our blog through youtube. We posted various videos on Youtube including our lip sync test, audience interviews and finshed product. From YouTube we could then embed the clips into various other sites including our blog and Facebook.
real media products?
our project this year was to to plan, design, and create a music video for an artist of our chose. We decided on the artist Ed Sheeran, and have decided to use his popular single "The A Team" it was our job to create not only a music video but to design and structure an intirely new image for them. By recreating their image, we would be able to make this artist appeal to a whole new demographic. In order to change the out going image of Ed Sheeran to how we wanted it we would have to use, and challenge common motifs found within the music videos of today.
When doing research for the creating of our music video, one way that we used common motifs, found in the music videos of today, is that instead of simply showing a narrative, we took on the challenge of lip syncing. This is used in many music videos to create a sense of comfort when watching, for the audience. It creates the illusion of live singing, witch adds to the idea that this is real life. It also puts a face to a voice, witch creates a personal connection between the singer and the audience by allowing the audience to see the singers facial expressions and emotions towards the song, rather then just having the singer as a 2 dimensional character that no one can relate to, as they do within the original music video. lip syncing is also used to create the illusion of story telling, witch instantly makes the meaning of the song lyrics more meaningful and personal.
One way in witch we challenge common motifs within music videos of today, is our use of setting. We were planing to recreate Ed Sheeran's image for a very specific demographic, witch was teenagers between the ages of 16 and 21. We kept this in mind throughout the creation of our music video. We decided to set our video in both a teenager's bedroom and a local park. This was done to make the feel of the videos very familiar and relatable, seeing these familiar environments would instantly set the audience in a sense of comfort, again creating a personal relationship between the audience and the singer.One way in witch we developed common motifs, is through the use of special effects as a vital part of the narrative. The form of special effects that we used was "green screen" technology. We collected some footage of our actress standing in front of green screen and was able to create the image of fast motion traffic in the background. This was done to show the pass of time, but mainly to show how our leading lady has recently become under the influence of class A drugs. The Green screen is often used to create another reality, a type of dream world where someone feels that anything is possible. And it is this escape from reality that often attracts the common person.2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
our intinal aim when re-creating this single was to re-create Ed Sheeran's image as a inde rock star, and inorder for this to be the case we tryed to create a similar feel and style throughout all ancillary texts, which in this case is the album cover, the webpage and of course the music video itself. Here you can see the album cover i designed to fit the new image we wanted to create for Ed sheeran, which was a rebelious post-teen rockstar who refused to follow any rules or pattons. as you can see the way every aspect has a different patton and style. It creates a very rebellious imagery, the way the text is written in a graffiti style or how the picture of Taylor is only slightly off the middle, or how the "A Team" text is not straight or uniform. It's as if this album cover doesn't follow any particular rules. This can make the entire image relate to our target audience that are modern day teenagers who naturally rebel against the generation before them, this is the exact idea and style we wanted for the webpage.
This is the webpage i designed to represent the new recreated image of our artist, much like the album cover, it was designed in every way to appeal to our specific target audience. As you can see we used a very specific style, that is to show a very familiar and reconisable to the other products we have created . The image of a Careless, rough, shown in an orderless, pattonless opening page. This webpage is aimed at the target audience age 16-21 year olds that are the most popular demographic for the music genre that we have chosen (indie rock). Moreover 16-21 year olds is seen to the public as the rebellious age, seen as scruffy careless and unorganised. As you can see, both the webpage and album cover portray the same style and imagery that we tried to create within our music video.
Posting all our recordings on a public, online blog, we could always go back to the blog and analyse any comments on all our work had done. all of our aspects, for example, the artist, the genre of music, the art work style, etc, were all designed by us to appeal to our specific demographic, that we have chosen as our target audience, and by having every step we have taken, on the online to the public it allows it to be available to the target audience and its our overall aim to analyse what our target audience thinks and would like to see.
The blog also gave us as a group a way of reaching many agreements and ending many arguments between the four of, about who is doing what, and spreading out the work equally between four people. For example, our group member George, created an online survey not only for our blog but also to spread across many different social websites (youtube, Facebook etc) giving our target audience the option of taking the online survey, would give us the information we need to find out what teenagers are attracted to within our music video.
3) What have you learned from audience feedback?
With the target audience in mind we deciding on the artist and song we are doing, we needed to find out whether our song would suit the audience not only finding out demographics related to our project but to find out what people of our target audience like to see.
After analysing our results, of our online surveys, before creating our music videos it seemed to strengthen the idea that our artist is very popular, and the genre he represents is very widely accessed. Also we now have hard evidence that using a strong narrative will not only make the video have a much better feel but will make the audience be more interested. we initially chose Ed Sheeran as he was a very recognisable artist for our target audience. Ed Sheeran's popularity has sky rocketed in the last year and was, at one point, the most downloaded artist in the UK with his popular single 'the A Team'. Ed Sheeran's popularity only seems to be growing as this relatively new artist has all ready got a massive amount of loyal fans.
We have learned, rather predictably that our target audience of teenagers aged 16-21, responded to our video with great amount of positivity. One of the aspects that audience respond well to was the narratives used. There was a strong understanding there and, if you watch the audience reactions, you would see that there was a strong personal and feeling of sympathy towards both characters within the story as struggling love, drug and alcohol abuse where all relatable or understandable issues to the common teenager.
Fortunately, another aspect that responded strongly to the audience was the setting, witch had been planed sense the beginning. However not only did the audience respond to the setting as it was relatable and familiar, reaching the audience on a personal level but the audience also recognised how the outer city setting as a relation to the alcohol and drug abuse that also featured in the video. While the initial planning for still responded to by using a familiar teenager's bedroom full of destruction and lacked any order as well as the loneliness and emptiness of the local park that we used.
Finally, the strongest response from our target audience was for the several uses of special effects. Mixed in with the familiarity of the setting and the relatable situation of the music video narrative, we included three different simple forms of special effects, (green screen, disappearing man and cloning). All three were designed to allow the audience escape from the harsh reality of the song and may create a slight idea that nothing is real and so there is always hope, this aspect often attracts audiences, and they seemed to watch it with joy and amazement.
4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
While creating, constructing and planning our project this year we use a strong variety of different programmes. The first program that we used, during the planning and organising process was the "Celtx" program that allowed us to not only plan ahead, with the use of a calendar organiser, to plan future filming and editing days, but it also has a "storyboard" system, allowing us to build a stronger structure for the music video. By using this program we were able to plan each day of filming as well as what shot we would shoot on those days, with the use of the storyboard that showed us the music video shot by shot.
When we moved onto the actual construction of the several aspects of our project we used a number of different programs from Adobe. The first was the program "adobe Photoshop" that we used to create the four sides of our album cover, and this allowed us to see cut, paste, edit and add texts and effects to any pictures we could up load. The second, and perhaps the most essential program that we used was "Adobe Premiere", this was the most important because it was the video editing software that we used create the music video. Premiere gave us the abilities of cutting and editing together all the footage that we got as well as using a huge variety of transitions for each clip, this software also allowed us create two of the special effects clips within our music video, we were able to dissolve to different clips together to show a disappearing man, and the cloning process.
The last Adobe program that we used was "adobe after effects", this was the program that our group member, George used to learn how to create separate special effects for video that we used. The most vital special effect within our music video was created within after effects, witch was the green screen clip that we used, the program allowed us the cut and paste different backgrounds around motion with the clip. we were able to do this by removing colours for images and videos.
We used YouTube during all stages of our production. we used it for all the stages of our project, it was vital for all the videos we made, (interviews, vlog post, music video etc) because it was the only way to make all our stages to our target audience, as well as being able to post all our videos on our blog through youtube. We posted various videos on Youtube including our lip sync test, audience interviews and finshed product. From YouTube we could then embed the clips into various other sites including our blog and Facebook.
Charlie Quirke
Monday, 20 February 2012
Evaluation-George Campbell Evaluation
1 ) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
This year our project was to create a music video for a song of our choice. We were told that we had to reinvent the appeal of the artist through our media product. Our media product uses, develops and challenges various forms of real media products. We have used techniques that can be found (and are common to) almost all music videos around the world. We have used conventional techniques such as lip syncing and special effects, within our music video to form the basis of the product. Lip syncing was used to emulate the effect of Taylor singing the song and we used special effects in the form of a green screen scene in which Aisleen (who is playing the crack addict) is standing infront of fast moving traffic. We did this for two reasons, the first is that it is used to indicate the passing of time and the second is to highlight that see had taken cocaine in the previous scene.
The music video itself follows a strong narrative in which Ed Sheeran (Taylor) is singing about the girl in the song. This form of narrative is very common of music videos, especially when the artist is singing about something or someone close to them.
Other ways we have used forms of real media products is that as well as making the music video we also made a website and radio spot in order to promote the music video. We also used social media sites such as facebook and youtube to get research from our target audience as well as helping to promote the music video.
2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
We wanted to recreate the image of Ed Sheeran, this image we wanted to create was that of an individual who has been through a struggle with his emotions, but also create an image that our target audience can relate to.
In order to do this we used a combination of our main product; the music video, and ancillary texts; the website and album cover. The first way we help to create this image was to create an overall "theme" to use across all of these products. This theme was an urban theme which was incorporated accross all of the products to help to relate to our target audience, this was done because the majority of target audience come from city suburbs which suffer with issues such as alcohol and drug abuse; which we wanted to highlight the issues with.
Our music video incorporate the urban theme as the locations for filming were based in Dagenham and Romford. The website also supports this theme as it incorporates a graffiti style when presenting objects.
We have also incorporated all of these products together by using technologies such as QR codes to link the album cover to the website and links on the website to link it to the video on youtube as well as our MTV video show.
In order to do this we used a combination of our main product; the music video, and ancillary texts; the website and album cover. The first way we help to create this image was to create an overall "theme" to use across all of these products. This theme was an urban theme which was incorporated accross all of the products to help to relate to our target audience, this was done because the majority of target audience come from city suburbs which suffer with issues such as alcohol and drug abuse; which we wanted to highlight the issues with.
Our music video incorporate the urban theme as the locations for filming were based in Dagenham and Romford. The website also supports this theme as it incorporates a graffiti style when presenting objects.
We have also incorporated all of these products together by using technologies such as QR codes to link the album cover to the website and links on the website to link it to the video on youtube as well as our MTV video show.
3) What have you learned from audience feedback?
We involved our target audience in every stage of our project. We wanted to create a product which tackles issues which are facing our target audience so we used a combination of techniques such as interviews, surveys and reviews.
After creating our final product we used a number of techniques to analyze the effectiveness of our finished product. We firstly created another survey; along with our music video, on facebook to receive the audiences overall feelings about our product.
From our research we found that the target audience feel that the choice of song and theme highlighted issues which affect many teenagers today. The audience members also commented that the choice of locations were good as this makes it seem more true to life.
The target audience also commented on the actors used within the music videos. Our audience felt that the use of actors who where the target audience age made the overall product more effective as they can find it easy to relate to the actors.
4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used various technologies during all stages of our project. The technologies we used take both the form of hardware and software. We used a standard set of hardware during all stages of the production. The pieces of hardware we used were a Macintosh computer which was used; among other things, to edit our music video as well as create surveys, convert media files, access the Internet etc. We also used a camera in order to record the scenes required for our music video, as well as interviews and podcasts. We used various pieces of software (including websites) during all stages of production. During construction and research we used software that would allow us to plan and log each stage of our production as well as performing market research. We have used a blogging platform (blogger) in order to log all of our activities and to post various aspects of our project.We used a piece of software called Celtex which allows us to organize the filming and editing stage of our project. It includes features such as a calendar (for organizing the days we were going to be filming and editing) and Master Catalog which was used to organize the props, locations and actors which would be required for each scene of filming. During the research stage we used a web application called MusicMetric; a platform which has statistics for music artists including demographic data and music purchases, which allowed us to analyze the demographics for our chosen artists such as the main age group of audience, popularity by country etc.
We used SurveyMonkey in order to create surveys which allowed us to get information directly from our target audience. We posted the created surveys on Facebook, which acted as our main communication method with our target audience. During the editing stage we mainly used two pieces of software – Abobe premiere and After Effects. We used adobe premiere to edit our footage as well as add transitions, text etc. and we used After Effects to create the green screen scene in which Aisleen is standing in front of fast moving traffic.
We used YouTube during all stages of our production. It acts as our main method of getting our work into the public domain. We posted various videos on Youtube including our lip sync test, audience interviews and finshed product. From YouTube we could then embed the clips into various other sites including our blog and Facebook.
By George Campbell
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