Evaluation : Question 1 Part 1

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

Evaluation Question 1 Part 2

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

Evaluation : Question 2

2.How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation : Question 3

3.What have you learned from the audience research?

Evaluation : Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the complete from ThomasMadden96

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

Sourcing extra feedback

Social Networks

I decided that now that I have completed my media project that I would send out some questions through social networks in hope that people would respond. Ad you can see from previous updates and posts I have placed some items on Flickr, though I thought to relish feedback even more for my evaluation I could try some new methods. This included sending out E-mails to my friends and tweets on twitter. As I don't have Facebook, that site was not an option.

Email-

I decided to e-mail a range of contacts that I have on my e-mail with the link to my music video to see that if I could get some more feedback on my music video. Although, I only received detailed feedback from one person it proved worth while posting this on my e-mail and getting the feedback. The feedback was as follows:

I was very happy with this feedback, as it understood why I used the creative flare, the smooth transitions from painting to video footage etc.



Twitter-

I also published a tweet on my twitter account to get people to give some feedback, this also received some feedback commenting on the professional appeal off the video. I was very happy with the feedback as the whole point of the project is trying to emulate what the music industry create in music videos on a smaller level. Which I think that this feedback deciphers.

Planning

Question 2 from ThomasMadden96

Description- Above is a word document showing my planning into the question that asks what we have you learnt from audience research, I now need to try and create a video with an audio descrition of this essay and add images to make this part of the evaluation more media friendly.

Final Final Music Video

Changes

Changes and rectifications:

As a result of showing our videos to our class for the last time we got to make any final final suggestions that could be made if you felt they were necessary. As you can see from the last post I made on my blog I have enlisted all of the changes and my actual action plan on how to rectify the problems and make my video more appealing towards my audience. The main changes that I knew I had to make included increasing the length that the final paintings appear on the screen as well as add non-addictive dissolves so that the drawings had a clear transition from drawing to footage. This will if planned correctly and if peoples feedback is correct will make the video run more smoothly and have clear transitions that run smoothly as oppose to have a jumpy feel.

 

To make the first step towards my changes I added dissolve to the ending animation. I also made each of the image longer which, I think helped to make the transition from drawing to the footage more smooth. I think that it also meant that my drawing could be seen longer, giving my video more of a wow actor, that would hopefully make the video seem more original then any existing music video.

 

 

The nest set of changes that I made to my video included making a dissolve to the middle animation incorporating paint, this made the made the painting once again have that smooth transition and clean finish, it also helped to make the painting look more successful as it emphasised how realistic it was to the real scene.

 

To then increase the production value of the video, I thought that it would be a good idea to try and link the lip syncing more, as it was quite distracting in some areas of the video when the lip-syncing was off. It also made it seem as though, I hadn't put much time into creating the video but I have so, it is important that I show that through the basic parts of the video. To ensure that I hadn't missed any singing that could have been off I made sure that I got a few new eyes to look at the video so, it wasn't just based on my opinion.

I think that these few changes although were complete within two hours, will make the video have that little bit more production value and make the transition look more smooth, hopefully making the video look less likely to be a school project.

To-do List

Planning what I have left:

After showing our music video for the last time to the class we received feedback from Leanne and Jack and just gave moral support to each other about how our videos were and the progress we have made over the time of doing and completing the project. I wasn't happy with the feedback, as I felt that it was unconsrtuctive and unnecessary considering its only a week until the deadline. Though, obviously I'm not the one marking it so i had to make the changes to make my video more successful and hopefully make someone finally like it. The feedback that I received was that the pictures for the paintings came up and came back down on the video too quick, the pace was off and I'm pretty sure that I heard someone say the lip-syncing was terrible. Hence, why I spent another two hours making changes t the music video and planning all that I have left.

Sourcing Feedback from social networks- Flickr

Sourcing Feedback-

 

We all got told that sourcing more peoples opinions on what our project was like, as we keep sharing our opinions with people that know the concept idea and practices of our video so the feedback, might not be all truthful. I saw this as an opportunity to put the three constructed tasks on to Flickr, and this was because I have quite a few contacts on Flickr as a result of having a lot of artwork online. So, I decided that I was going to put my poster, digi-pak and music video online to get more opinions. Below, as you can see I have published the new opinions and thoughts of all of my contacts as well as the favourites.

 

Print Poster- 

 

From my digi-pak series of print posters I got in total 28 favourites (as of 03/03/2014) as well as 4 comments. I am extremely happy with the result of the favourites and the comments and I found that from sourcing the feedback there was a mixed opinion on what people though, some thought that the pink was the most successful commenting on the post saying "pink :)" showing that they enjoyed the pink design the most, other commented excellent work, so I thought personally it was my decision to stick with all four designs and have the pink as the main poster. I purposely didn't choose to de-select the other designs as I think that they show a more well rounded representation of the artist and what she is about. Fpr example without the oil painted (effect) poster I don't think that it is quite as explicit at saying the the artist is about arty things.

Flickr Music Video

 

 

As a result of publishing my music video on Flickr, I received 32 favourites (as of 03/03/2014) showing a great interest in the music video then the print poster adverts, I also had 9 comments on total on the video some stating that they loved the videos, other saying "superb", "great" and "I loved this" I was extremely happy with these comments as none of suggest that changes needed to occur as it seemed that they all thought that the video was exciting and diverse from the music industry. The most pleasing feedback, I received from Flickr was that the video was well produced. This made me feel extremely content, as I felt that I had done what I was setting out to accomplish. I think as a result of this feedback, I feel even more happy with what I have produced individually.

Flcikr Digi-pak

 

From publishing my digi-pak online I received 16 favourites in total with people commenting on the success of using the vintage iconographical items such as the gramophone as well as two commenting on the success of the expressive CD designs in the bottom right hand corner. I'm very happy with the response from this piece of work and although it got the least amount of favourites, I think it is down to me publishing this first so, it appealing after the other two items. I think from receiving this feedback, it has made it even more clear to me that the idea of using old fashioned items that were somewhat considered a past time really worked with this style of artist and the use of effects is very significant in making the consumer feel a certain way when viewing the media.

Current Video;

This is my current music video with all of the corrections and the changes included. After completing my fourth draft of the video, I thought that I should look back into the video and see if there were any changes or corrections that were needed. I couldn't find any, probably because I had been looking at the video for  too long, so I asked my teacher and she thought that making the childhood memories have a different effect would benefit it as, at the moment with the bad TV effect it was too old and I only need to make the footage look a decade old not centuries. So, we both thought that making the footage have a sepia or orange tint would be more beneficial, So, in final cut pro I added this effect and this made the video look far more successful.

I also spend about three hours making all of the stop motion footage all the same size. To do this I had to go back into final cut pro and make all of the footage fit the screen. This would help make the video all the same size. Meaning that it wouldn't be going from rectangles to squares and wouldn't have the black border. After the long and time consuming procedure I found that this actually made the video look more successful. These are the two main changes to the video and I think that they have really benefited in giving the video more of a production value.

At the moment, I don't think that there are many more changes that can be made to the video, though if there are any more changes welcomed by the research I am planning to create on social networks then, I wont hesitate to make the video better.

Making The opening animation and closing

Here there are two videos that each show animations that are going to be at the start and end of my music video. I decided that after watching my music video that there were wasn't enough capturing your attention at the begging of the video. I think that the animations will fit in really nicely with the music video overall as it has a creative flare that fits in with the whole music video. I really like that there is a painting element in this video as it is what I am about as a person so lets me stamp my own individual take on the song.

Planning the Evaluation -

Evaluation Plan:

We have just been told that we have one week to complete the evaluation.

To make sure that everyone knows my idea for my evaluation, I thought that I would post it on my blog as last time there was some confusion to whether people were copying ideas.

Deadline: 14 February 2014 (though we can spend half term if unfinished)

Questions that need answering:

1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2.How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
3.What have you learned from the audience research?
4.How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages.

How am I going to answer the questions in the most technology based way that I can:

For the first question I plan on  having a final cut pro video of myself speaking.
The second question will be a prezi.
The third a video with a sound recording.
The forth a presentation.

Using all of these media platforms will allow me as a media student show my creative flare. Hence, making my evaluation better.

Journal -

So far I have made many drastic changes to my video to try and make it more successful, as I keep repeating, you can see that the video is now arty, I have also took on all of the feedback that Leanne and Sinead gave me and rectified those mistakes, which is great.

I think now to make the video the best it can be, its all about just going back into the video looking at it, spotting some weakness, rectifying them and then repeating the process until there are no more changes and I am completely happy with the way that it is. I will amongst completing this process ask both Sinead and Leanne if they think that anything needs improvements; though I am happy with the way that the video is going.

I think I am going down the right track though of adding footage that has been shot really well as essentially if the footage is of a bad quality and hard to watch, not many people are going to be interested in watching the video. I think that I have secured making sure, that this doesn't happen through y projection, baby footage and the airplane scene.

Current Music Video -

This is my current music video with the changes that I have made to the video. I thought it best that I visually documented the process of the video so that anyone viewing my blog could see how the video was shaping. As you can see from the last changes a lot of my video has been altered and had amendments to it so that the video could be become more successful. This has included adding the animations to make the video more cute and artsy which was needed as it fits the narrative of the song and the lyrics perfectly. This was especially clear when I put the window animation at the beginning because it flowed with the beginning lyrics of "three little birds sat on my window".

I also added more stop animations as they had the same arty's feel, they also made the video seem more vintage and retro which was essential as to make this video look like it could really exist it needed to feel organic and vintage. To increase the vintage dynamic of the video I had to use projections thaty connoted that feel including a birds cage, a cake stand and flowers (a daisy field). I think that this really tied in well with the black and white projections as it was very monochromatic.

Other changes include adding paintings into some sections of the footage, i did this so that the video was tied together and more continuos throughout, as it would look very unprofessional if the footage jumped from digital based footage to photographs and paintings really quickly. I think that adding this footage made the video more dynamic as, there aren't that many videos that try and attempt to make arty videos that are ground rooted.

I think in-order to try and make the video even more successful, I need to try and potentially cut out the bad lip syncing as well as make the screen sizings the same throughout.

Re-shot footage

I had after the first screening go back into some of the footage and then improve it by reshooting it. This was both down to the footage being poorly lit or very bad lip sunig. Though, I didn't mind as I want my video to be the best It can be so, I went back into the video and improved it by making sur Ethan this time I used a great amount if lights and lamps so that the footage was really good, to also try and make sure that the footage would have very clear lip syncing I played the song in the background so that the person in the video could actual see what was coming next, the timings etc.

I think that this will give the video more production value. With the better footage I think that this will mean that I can add effects to the footage,meithout it looking poorly lit etc. This will help to make the video comply with the conventions of this genre as, this genre specifically has footage that has a vintage and rustic feel. 

So, to make the video comply with these key codes and conventions I can play around with some effects to make this bedroom singing more effective. I think that some of the effects that will work well alongside this footage could be the tint with a quite hig contrast or the 3-way colour correction tool as you can play around with the hue and saturation until you think that it is perefcet for the video.

Journal -

I have now completed a great amount to the video, although it is not all in the video yet in the video I have actually filmed a lot. Some of the new scenes that have been filmed for include the airplane scene, the childhood memories and the projections. I think that this will make the video more successful because it will have more diversity in shots, have more scenes and  look more clean cut.

I think the footage shot had a lovely tone and effect to it because I considered the lighting more this time as I knew that the chance of re-shooting was possibly unlikely. I also spend a great deal of time, trying to endorse in arty things as that was some of the feedback given too improve my video. I spent a very long time making the airplanes and this was because I knew that if they were made very clean that would add to the organic and arty feel.

My plan for the upcoming weeks is to try and add all of the footage to the final cut pro document and edit them all in, then working from that I hope to try and see what needs improving and from that just keep updating the video. As well as that I want to carry out some audience research to see if my digi-pak and my print poster are at the highest calibre that they can be.

Baby Footage

I had to once again try and make footage that I knew could feel the gaps of my video and I thought that I would try and add footage of the star as a child, as i think that this would fit in with the current footage. I think that this would fit with the current footage, as it is quite relaxed, she is mainly walking through the woods and I think it may even potentially give the video a narrative. The narrative being that she is thinking back to older memories. 

To get the footage I had to find a lot of old tapes of her on film. The I had to bring them all to school, exporting the footage off of the tapes and onto Final Cut Pro, I had to then choose what footage that i thought i could keep. This was a very long process, and was very time consuming. Though, I think that the result of getting the footage was a good one.

I now plan to add the footage when editing the video, putting it in sections where there are gaps and where I fill that the footage will really fit in. I also plan on putting an effect on the footage, possibly even sepia as I  feel that this will make it clear to the audience that she is a young girl looking back at something old. I did try and put a Bad Film effect onto the footage though, that came out looking too old and think that its fine to make the video look like she is looking at nostalgic memories though I can't make it look too old as it will give the wrong impression.

As you can see from the screenshots that I have uploaded, I have added the sepia effect, and I think that this looks really nice on the footage as it makes it look old and rustic yet, not too old that you wouldn't belive that Ruby Collins is a young artists.


I plan to blog the next update on my video and how this looks.

Please leave a comment on possible changes to the footage that you think are necessary or would make the footage look even more successful.

Projections

Projections-

To try and make my video once again have the arty"s" feel about it that is required, I decided to try and make something that is arty. In this case it was projections onto a wall. To begin with, I had to think of things that could be projected and I thought that I would really like to see quite niche items that have vintage connotations attached to them in the video as that will match the music's tone.

All of the projections that I decided had this connotation included: a daisy field, a vintage birds cage, a teacup and a cake stand.

I really like all of the projections as they all came out really nice and I think that the juxtaposition between the black and white projection and the colour of Ruby Collins outfit was quite cute. I think that its al about trying to create the video in a niche way to make it more fun to watch as the main point of a music video is to get lots of people to watch.

Daisy Field Projection-

The first projection was the daisy field projection and I really like this one because Ruby Collins made the action quite comical as, she was blowing the flowers yet  obviously they didn't move, so it was quite tongue and check. I also like the way that I could try and change the size and the composition of the flowers.

Birds Cage Projection-

The second projection was of a birds cage and in this projection Ruby Collins pulled up the birds cage by the top and then pinned it to the wall. This stop motion was quite quick in pace and worked really well with the other footage as the actual birds cage was a very detailed projection.

Tea Cup Projection-


The third projection I mixed with digital footage, Ruby drank from the cup and then pushed the cup off of the screen. I liked this because the projection had the fine tuned detailed of the floral patterns on the cup.

Cake Stand Projection -

The final projection was the cake stand and it was difficult to think of an action for this projection as the second projection had a lifting action so I decided to make the video more diverse. So, Ruby in this stop motion would just push the projection away from her after moving her hands a lot.

Areoplanes / Bedroom Stop Motions

After receiving my last lot of feedback, noting that my video was quite repetitive and didn't have that much of an arty feel, I brainstormed how I would try and make the video less repetitive and have more of a niche feel.

 

Therefore, I thought that adding some new scenes/locations in my video would make it far more successful as it would help break up each scene and replace any footage that is repeated.

 

My first idea was a scene in which Ruby Collins would be in a room, there would be some aeroplanes around her as that way it would feel quite cute; which ties in with the overall feel of the song. It also has quite an arty element involved as the whole setting would be made by me using materials sourced by me and making aeroplanes myself.

 

When actually filming this footage it was quite fun, though I do have to say that actually making the aeroplanes properly and out of paper and then, tying the string to the aeroplane. And then masking taping it to the ceiling was a very long process and took me quite a while to do single handled. Though the end result and the images that came out really worked well.

I think that when putting this footage into the video, I think that the footage of Ruby Collins singing could be broken up by images of her as that way it wont be as boring and will feel quite cutesy with the poses. I think it will also help cut in the lip syncing so that the chorus hits on point.

Bedroom-

The other location that I filmed was actually a re-shoot which was of the bedroom singing, this was to try and make the footage more successful by making sure that the lighting was less gloomy, the actual character had a more emotive reaction to the lyrics and to put more props in the background. To ensure that this was completed to a perfect standard I put more posters on the wall, got lamps in the room and informed the character that she needed to more emotive. I also filmed in the day time to ensure the lighting was perfect.

Whilst doing this footage, I also thought because everything went well I could even potentially try and make some more footage.

In this case it was making a stop motion of random activities of Ruby Collins which happened to be her such as reading a book and her pulling her hair down. Which I think worked well with the lighting and the clean cut images on the DSLR.

In the future, I hope to try and keep updating the new and improved footage, I will also try and put the new and improved footage on YouTube and post this on my blog as soon as possible so that you can see the new changes.

Exporting

Everyday, after I have spend a serious amount of time on the video, I try and export the video so that I have the time to once I have made the video go back each exported file and see the changes that have happened. It is also easier to put it online and show other people so that I can get more feedback on how to try and improve my video as I don't want my feedback to all be from me as I am clearly bias.


Though, this is only an idea that has happened recently, and I don't think that I will do a lot, becuase then it will take more time doing this then completing the actual video itself.


Though, it really did help when I was showing my family the project as they got to see it straight away and suggest any amendments that could be made to the video to try and make it far more successful. In the up and coming blog posts I hope that anyone tracking my blog will see on new posts the exported videos so that they can see the process and the journey of making the overall music video.

The other reason I will avoid exporting on too much on a regular basis is because it is very time consuming and will mean that valuable time on editing will be wasted on less productive tasks.

Also as you can see from the screenshots at the side, it shows that there is a timeline. On this timeline there is a lot of clips and I felt that this is one of the main reasons that I exported this exact version of my music video as, it has so many cuts that I wanted to check when exported it had smooth transitions that run cut from cut otherwise, the production value of the video would be decreased. Hence, changes would be needed.

Editing Some More...

 


Analysis

After the feedback that I received on my video, I  decided that I was going to make some quick cuts on the video. This way I could see what parts of the song could need new scenes.I found that in total there was four main chunks on the time line that could be removed and replaced with more successful footage.

I think this will give me some more footage to play with and in turn give me an opportunity to work back into the comments that I didn't like.

I think to improve the footage I can complete the following points to make it of a better quality:
-Adding new scenes.
-Incorporating arty things in the video.
-Using new digital processes or things that will have more of a buzz feel (stop motion)
-Incorporating more of Goodwin's principles.

Other changes I made to the video including testing out some of the effects that you can get on the footage. To do this you just play around with the effects, until you have the desired tone that you think works. To get onto the effects you go to the main toolbar, click onto effects the, video filters and then scroll through all of the tones. I found that the most successful way of working was not to limit yourself to an effect as you can undo anything that you do.

I think that the most successful effect was the 3-way colour corrector as it was a tool, that allowed me to change the whole colour of the video clips and either make it brighter, darker. So, when adding effects I think that I will use this effect.

Feedback from first screening:

Today, was our firs screening for our music video. It was our first opportunity to put our whole music video to the whole, class alongside our Digipak and poster and get some detailed feedback on how the whole project is going.

We had to present these ideas in a way that we thought acceptable for our genre. I decided to make a quick presentation because it gave me the oppituinty to put what components I thought were the most successful first. For this reason I decided to present my Digipak and poster first as they I think are the most successful pieces and I feel that they are completed.

The feedback, was very constructive and has now given me an opportunity to work on my project and make it better. Some comments made that were commenting on the project being successful was, the Digipak and the poster. My teacher said they were perfect for the genre and that nothing needed changing.

 The only real thing that the teachers found needed the changes and the improvements was my actual video.They thought, my vide was quite repetitive and had far too many shots of her walking, they also thought that sometimes the performance was lacklustre and unconvincing and that I should try and make my video arty; because I'm good at that side of creating things. 

First I was dis-heartened by the feedback as expected, though once I thought about the feedback and reviewed the video myself i found that getting truthful feedback was the best idea as now all I can do is improve.The successful parts that the people who viewed my video made comments on where: the tones in the background, he look of the star, the locations, some of the camera work, the projections and the stop animation.

Journal

As a result of the feedback that I received yesterday, I have made plans to try and improve the video to the best of my ability so hat I know I am completely happy with the final outcome. I hope to try and make the scenes that we unconvincing, more convincing by upping the Mise-en-scene, photographing more up close, adding effects and asking the female playing Ruby Collins to be more animated and interested.

Because of the feedback that was made, I have also decided that I will also try and make my video more arty, to do this I will try and make the vide have a vintage effect, that is applied through Final Cut Pro. This will give my video more production value and hopefully increase the mark. 

As well as this I think that  it would be beneficial to have more projections with Ruby Collins in, to try and incorporate painting and get baby videos in the video too; to make it more cute.I have also decided that I will try and re-do the mirror scene by making t more bright so that the audience can actually see what is happening as, it is quite hard to actually tell what is happening and when.

Arty Plans:

Planning to make my video more arty: Some of the feedback from the first screening was that my music video wasn't quite arty enough. For this exact reason I have decided that I am going to be putting more acetate sequences/scenes into the video using projections. 

Though, this time I really would like the projections to involve Ruby Collins in them as it will be more interesting.I think this will allow me to have the projections onto Ruby Collins' face and involve her in the arty scenes.

 I also plan on having more lyrics projected in the video as that worked well in the first screening and was received well  , it will also help me break up the video more and make sure that the video is less boring. It means that I can also now try and get rid of some of the footage that was too repetitive.

Some of the things that I really would like to try and project onto Ruby Collins face include flowers, a projection of her as a child and possibly a cup and record player. I will put these files all onto word, print out and then photocopy onto acetate ready to project.I will blog as and when the process is over, illustrating what worked, what didn't work as planned etc.

Final Digi-pak Poster:

Making it clear what designs are my digi-pak poster:As Leanne and Sinead, have said from the feedback that my print advert was lovely and that both the digi-pak and poster together presented a consistent image. I thought it best to try and make the design clear and clean and because I am going to have more then one poster I thought it best t select which ones were he most successful and then put them all together so there is more consistency.

I really like the fact that. Have put them together as it nicer to see what is going on and what type of artist I have. Also because there is more than one poster it means that my star is presented as less one dimensional. I think that the designs and the effects that I have chosen were good choices as they all interlink through the layout and the only noticeable difference is the effect changed.

First Screening:

Materials and sources used for my first screening of my music video:

This is my current music video, prior to the indents changes that need to be made.

This is the presentation I used as a guideline to present my design to the class.:

Tom first screening from ThomasMadden96

Journal Entry-

This is my most current Journal entry so far, since my last Journal entry it is clear that I have  made great progress with the coursework and that my project is finally shaping to be a coherent cross media platform campaign. I am finally quite happy of what I am starting to achieve for this project as, it s starting to look more like the work I intended to produce.

I have so far this week started to film new scenes so that my video didn't look so empty and actually had a variety of locations. Whilst at the woods this week, I started to consider the way that the natural light was reflecting so that I knew that the mise-en-scene was as good as I could have tried to. I also tried to make sure that the video had more lip-syncing. Hence, why the woods shooting was very heavy on the lip-syncing. Though, this time when filming I thought that it was essential to make sure that Ruby Collins was lip syncing to the best of her ability.

So, to try and help her lip sync to the best of her ability I purchased the song on an iPad and then took the iPad to the locations when we filmed so that, Ruby Collins would know when to sing and the actual timings of the song as well as the pauses in the song or the instrumentals. This would also make it much easier for me to edit as well, because I can hear the audio in the background of the footage.

I also got the chance to reshoot the bedroom singing which was poorly lit the first time around, though I think that the footage may be quite bland or uninteresting as Ruby Collins ( Lauren Madden) wasn't that emotive again/ Therefore, I may have to try and re-film again to make the footage more interesting. I plan to in the up and coming weeks look at making the video better, by introducing new scenes etc.

15/01/2014 Editing-

Editing-

I have started to edit the footage that I  filmed yesterday today, mainly because I had the time and it was a convenient time to actually start looking at the footage and also because I thought it best that I edited quit quickly after filming so that I knew from the  previous day what went where and why a particular thing needed to go there.

Today's editing, was quite problematic as the system kept crashing and I kept loosing the edited footage that I had worked on. After this happened several times, I began saving my work compulsively so that nothing got lost. This ending up in me saving too much. Then, I cam back to finish when the systems network was less occupied and this allowed me to spend more time on the video making it better.


So, I actually got the opportunity to sort out the mirror footage which was a great opportunity as I got to learn how to change the brightness to the footage making it easier to see Ruby Collins. I am as of yet to sort out the bedroom scene though, but this is my main priority for changing tomorrow. I also hope to try and possibly look at effects that could be added to the footage to give it more production value.