Finall digipak

I decided to make a couple more changes.
Firstly after my target audience liked the fact that the actual band was on the magazine advertisement i decided to put the same effect on the back of my album cover. I also deiced to put the name of the album on the digipak sleeve and add a bar code to make it look more like a genuine product and so it links with my other products more effectively. The link between my advert and my digipak is now more obvious through the band image.

In what was does your media product use, develop or challange forms and convention of real media products

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What you have learned from audience feedback? Final Draft

We got audience feedback for the music video by showing it to a group of about 20 people. These 20 people all fell within the demographic of people we were aiming the products at. They are male to female between the ages of 16-18. We uploaded our music video to the media sever we were using and then showed it to the group an a large screen. This was done so we could get feedback, we also handed out a questionnaire to everyone in the room which had a number of questions about certain aspects of the music video we had made, this was so they write down and comment on aspects of our product that we were not sure how they would get. However we then had problems with our media product and it did not show properly, it was jumpy all the way through which made it very difficult to get any useful feedback for our music video. However we did learn that some of the shots were a bit boring and too long from the little feedback that was relevant, furthermore the most important lesson that we learnt from this experience and feedback was the importance of putting media products on youtube as there is less likely to be a technical difficulties on youtube.
When I handed out questioners for my digipak I handed out about 20 to a similar demographic, some of the same people answered the questions. The general consensus from my questionnaire was that i was going on the right track however they wanted some tweaks, the biggest thing that they wanted to change was the font changed, so this is what I did. Also the background according to them needed some work, but when I asked them the question to what genre they thought the my first attempt at the album cover should represent the vase majority about 95 % put down the genre that the album was attempting to represent. From this audience feedback I began to understand what they were looking for when it came to representing that particular genre of music
This left me with my last task which was to make thr magazine advertisement to get attention drawn to the album. After my first two questionnaires I feel I understood more what my target audience wanted for that genre so I had a much easier time making it. This meant that when I handed out the questionnaires for the last media text I already had gone in the right direction wityh the developing of it as I understood my targer audience. So I handed out this questionnaire to the same number of people, 20, of my target demographic this demographic were all taken from the college I go to.
IN conclusion I feel over the course of all three questionnaires I began to find what my target audience as actually looking for in media products, they were looking for a unique sort of genre that was not mainstream with darker colours to represent the alternative/ Indie style of music, my research from my target audience helped me greatly in understand what a audience looks for in a product and I hope it helped me make adequate products.

How effective is the combination of your main product with ancillary texts? Final draft

I feel that I have managed to have kept a good sense of genre between all of my media the media texts. Between the music video, album digipack design and the magazine advert I made I feel that I have managed to give a good account of what genre of music it is meant to represent, the music genre is alternative rock/ Indie.
The main product represents the genre of the music in the way that it is rather different, alternative if you will, to that of existing music videos by this I mean compared to the normal performance based music video our music video is 100% narrative. But this different I think it gives the music video that independent feel, which for me means that it fits in rather comfortably with the Indie music genre, as the whole point of alternative rock/Indie genre is to be different from everything else around
My ancillary texts were my digipak and magazine advertisement these were created using Photoshop. The similarities between me music video and these two ancillary texts is that they all share the common theme of rather darker colours, usually darker colours tend to be associated with music of a less commercial nature, alternative music is not generally seen as a commercial genre of music. This theme is shared across in all of my pieces of media work, them main product which is a music video supports this through winterish environments and with some of the scenes for the music video being in somewhat of a bland indoor area (the barn) this develop the sense of darkness and less commercial things, as more commercial music videos from a pop music genre would be happier, normally with brighter colours and more interesting areas perceived to be nicer areas, like city centres with all the bright lights and sights for the viewer to enjoy while listing to a more upbeat song.
This theme of Indie and darker colour is carried on with my digipak. The background colour is a darker one yet again to try and give this sense of independence from digipaks of a more generic type of music. Furthermore like my music video with its plain backgrounds of a more rural nature, the digipak cover itself as very little going on, this was to give a sense of how my products can be somewhat plain, I like to think this rather plain but effective feeling is shown in all of my media texts from the mina product to the more ancillary texts, they all share that feeling.
Lastly my magazine advertisement also shares these themes, there is little going on with my magazine advert but like the other there are plain colours used with very little effect to complete the sense that it is not generic main stream music. The magazine advert has a picture of the band which differentiates it from the rest of my texts as it is the first time that a picture of the band as been shown I any of my texts, so although I attempted to make my products all similar I liked to give them all a unique edge as well, this unique aspect of my magazine to the rest of my media texts is that it is the only imagine of the band on any of my work. Apart from that picture they mostly follow the same conventions, with the dark colours present in my magazine like the other media texts, in my magazine the colours are black and white, I have always liked the contrast of these two colours, black and white are colours that when out together always make a interesting contrast, and as I have mentioned before these two colours especially the black, because it is a darker less popular colour, makes the brand style that I have tried to keep up in all of my media texts.
In conclusion I feel that all of my media texts have a particular brand style that has managed to be upheld all the way through, this for me is the choice of darker colours and that they seem to be less generic feel and a more alternative feel throughout. Furthermore since to a extent that all my media texts are different to the normal pop, using products of a similar sort they stand out and will stand out together making them a good combination for each other. To conclude I eel that the combination of darker colours and my products all being against the norm to a extent make them compliment each other.

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

Blog:
To record all aspects of our research we used the blog to post posts of all the information we collected.
You can either type the post up on blogger, copy and paste the text from word or even upload documents to slide share and then embed them into the blog.
Embedding pictures into blogger either scanned in that we created, for instance our storyboard or get pictures from the internet and upload them right to the post by using the URL.
The blog is meant to be utilized in such a way that when you have finished a document or piece of work it is advisable to put it onto the blog as to keep track of the work and show evidence that the work has actually been done. I used the blog for such things however I always had trouble keeping up to date with what needed to be blogged and when, this sometimes lead to deadlines being missed and bad organization. Therefore if I would change one thing about the whole blogging process, it would be that I would try and keep more organised and attempt to have put more of the work. However using blogger was most useful when it came to keeping up to date with the college blog, this allowed me to keep track of what was needed and there would also be useful suggestions to what we should do, by this I mean that when we were making our album covers our college blog was utilized by the staff to show us useful covers of other bands work that we may find useful when we were making that of our own. So in conclusion I feel that I could have used blog more successfully, but it was useful as it allowed us to put stuff on slide share on it would relatively easy to embed music videos.
Music video:
Lighting:
As we began to shoot our music video we had a limited time schedule to shoot, we only had around 2 hours before it got dark. However, this enabled us to use the light in a way that from inside the barn it wasn’t too well lit, this helped us to give the audience the eerie feeling we needed. However, this did mean that some of our shots had to be discarded because we either didn’t have the right light or they just weren’t visible enough to use.

Camera:
To best use our camera effectively we used a tripod for steady shots. For the majority of shots we took we used the camera tripod. It was most effectively used for the setting shot at the very beginning where it allowed us to use the long zoom into the barn from on top of the hill. With the tripod it would have been an extremely shaking shot. However we did not always have to use the tripod, for one scene in our music video we decided that it would be better if we did not use the tripod as we decided to go with a perspective shot. This was used while walking and held at eye level to give the feel of someone actually walking making the shot more realistic. The tripod was also used for all the panning shots.
Editing
For the editing of our music video text, we used final cut express. Final cut express on MAC computers. This was what I think a relatively easy editing programme to used but in the right hands it can be really effective as you can put on loads of effects. Went first had to upload all of our clips we decide to used then we put the clips into two initial categories which where shots we thought were good enough and shots that we thought were not good enough to go into the music video, this was done by making to such folders so after viewing each shot me and Chris would critically assess whether or not the shot should be put into the final piece. After this we would put the clips into chronological order and try and fit in the transitions with the pace of the music, special effects where added later.
Print productions
what was used: Photoshop+ various resources given to us by the band
To start with the band had initially given us some pictures and resources that we could use of them, they gave us some pictures of them practising and other just general pictures of the band together.
After deciding that for my digipack I would be using only one picture of an eye that was suggested to me to use by the band, to make the digipak I would be using a MAC version of Photoshop. Firstly I cropped in an image for the dimensions that a digipack would have to use and set that as the layer so I could work round it, this helped me put everything into place, and subsequent layers were put on until the work was finished. I found this a very simple piece of work; this may have been partially down to my relative lack of experience when it comes to Photoshop, I feel therefore that for my next piece of print production, which was the magazine advert, that I utilized Photoshop in a better manner as I was more experienced with using it.
As for when it came to my second print production o was slightly more confident with using Photoshop, I used very similar methods to that of what I used for my first print production. However the main difference between what I did for my first print production and this one was that for the magazine advertisement I decided t crop a picture in of the band. However the techniques I used were very similar for this for Photoshop but I feel and hope that I managed to utilize Photoshop more effectively and this will be evident in my second print production. Therefore I am happy with my use of Photoshop however I do feel I could have used it in a more advanced way to attempt to get more advanced effects, however I still feel that I have improved when it comes to Photoshop while making my two print productions

1st draft for evaluluation question 'How did you use the media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?'

Plan for evaluation
How did you use the media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Blog:
To record all aspects of our research we used the blog to post posts of all the information we collected.
You can either type the post up on blogger, copy and paste the text from word or even upload documents to slide share and then embed them into the blog.
Embedding pictures into blogger either scanned in that we created, for instance our storyboard or get pictures from the internet and upload them right to the post by using the URL.
The blog is meant to be utilized in such a way that when you have finished a document or piece of work it is advisable to put it onto the blog as to keep track of the work and show evidence that the work has actually been done. I used the blog for such things however I always had trouble keeping up to date with what needed to be blogged and when, this sometimes lead to deadlines being missed and bad organisation. Therefore if I would change one thing about the whole blogging process, it would be that I would try and keep more organised and attempt to have put more of the work. However using blogger was most useful when it came to keeping up to date with the college blog, this allowed me to keep track of what was needed and there would also be useful suggestions to what we should od, by this I mean that when we were making our album covers our college blog was utilized by the staff to show us useful covers of other bands work that we may find useful when we were making that of our own. So in conclusion I feel that I could have used blog more successfully, but it was useful as it allowed us to put stuff on slide share on it would relatively easy to embed music videos.


Music video:
Lighting:
As we began to shoot our music video we had a limited time schedule to shoot, we only had around 2 hours before it got dark. However, this enabled us to use the light in a way that from inside the barn it wasn’t too well lit, this helped us to give the audience the eerie feeling we needed. However, this did mean that some of our shots had to be discarded because we either didn’t have the right light or they just weren’t visible enough to use.

Camera:
To best use our camera effectively we used a tripod for steady shots. For the majority of shots we took we used the camera tripod. It was most effectively used to the long zoom into the barn from on top of the hill. With the tripod it would have been an extremely shaking shot. However we did not always have to use the tripod, for one scene in our music video we decided that it would be better if we did not use the tripod as we decided to go with a perspective shot. This was used while walking and held at eye level to give the feel of someone actually walking. The tripod was also used for all the panning shots
Editing of our music videos
For the editing of our music video text, we used final cut express. Final cut express on MAC computers. This was what I think a relatively easy editing programme to used but in the right hands it can be really effective as you can put on loads of effects. Went first had to upload all of our clips we decide to used then we put the clips into two initial categories which where shots we thought were good enough and shots that we thought were not good enough to go into the music video, this was done by making to such folders so after viewing each shot me and Chris would critically assess whether or not the shot should be put into the final piece. After this we would put the clips into chronological order and try and fit in the transitions with the pace of the music, special effects where added later.
Print productions:
What was used: Photoshop+ various resources given to us by the band
To start with the band had initially given us some pictures and resources that we could use of them, they gave us some pictures of them practising and other just general pictures of the band together.
After deciding that for my digipack I would be using only one picture of a eye that was suggested to me to use by the band i just used Photoshop. Firstly i cropped in a image for the dimensions that a digipack would have to use and set that as the layer so i could work round it, this helped me put everything into place, subsequent layers were put on until the work was finished. I found this a very simple piece of work; this may have been partially down to my relative lack of experience when it comes to Photoshop, I feel therefore that for my next piece of print production, which was the magazine advert, that I utilized Photoshop in a better manner as I was more experienced with using it.
As for when it came to my second print production o was slightly more confident with using Photoshop, I used very similar methods to that of what I used for my first print production. However the main difference between what I did for my first print production and this one was that for the magazine advertisement I decided t crop a picture in of the band. However the techniques I used were very similar for this for Photoshop but i feel and hope that i managed to utilize Photoshop more effectively and this will be evident in my second print production. Therefore i am happy with my use of Photoshop however i do feel i could have used it in a more advanced way to attempt to get more advanced effects, however I still feel that i have improved when it comes to Photoshop while making my two print productions

Why there has been no audience ffedback for our first showing of the music video

Basically when we previewed the first viewing of our music video we had massive technical problems, the video jumped the whole time which resulted in everything being out of time, this meant that the target audience that we gave the questions to could not really give us any relevant feedback as a result of the video not being what it should be, the basic feedback that i received was, make the video l; less jumpy, this meant that all the feedback we got was void and we had to invite a few people to have private viewing at another time and took advice down from there, this resulted in the cutting of too scenes that we to full of effects, as that is what the majority of our target audience said

The equipment list

We only used, and needed to use, two things. Both of these things were given to us by the college to use for our filming. The two thing used were the camera for filming and the tripod for the different camera angles and techniques.

The Camera we used the Sont hdr cx8ek hd:








The Tripod we used was called, manfrotto

Stroy Board

Final magazine advertisment

Results of my questionnaire

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Questionnaire for magazine advert 1st draft

Questionnaire for magazine advert

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My first magazine advert draft

Second draft for album cover

Research into target audience

The Riot tapes are what I would consider a alternative rock/ Indie band band, this generally mean that they will appeal to a larger audience than other types of music, such as heavy metal. This is because there are neither pop nor rock, they are somewhere in between which leaves me to believe that an alternative/Indie band could be well suited for both demographics, this is because since this genre of music is at neither extreme, therefore I think the target age for this sort of music and therefore the band we have used would be early teens to early adult, so about 13-25 yr old would be the target audience, but I think more people would like it as the music is accessible to basically anyone. However it is difficult to pinpoint an exact group as a target audience of alternative rock/Indie as it's difficult to give a specific gender or age range or class to the alternative rock/Indie genre, as it is rapidly becoming more mainstream, with many Alternative rock/Indie bands reaching the top 10 in the music charts.

I think we would draw in a similar sort of fan base to this band as the fan base of the British band The Mystery Jets.

Questionnaire for album cover of the riot tapes open eyed dreams, and conlusion about how to improve the album cover

I handed out about 15 questionnaires to various people from Reepham College.


In you opinion what genre of music would you think this is?




How could the album background be improved in your opinion?




Would changing the colour of the writing to that of the CD be a improvement, if so why?



Conclusion draw from Questionnaire results


For the first question most people believed that because of its dark boring background it would mostly be some sort of dark music, this was further enforced by the black writing, to change this to a alternative music it was encouraged that I maybe made a lighter or at least more interesting background, and change the colour of the font to give it a lighter alternative feeling.

For the second question it was almost unanimous, make the background more interesting by possibly adding texture, and changing the font, I shall take that into consideration.

For the third it was difficult, as almost everyone wanted a different colour, however I am going to go with red as it is the same as the colour of the CD colour, this will make the album cover match more.

Therefore in conclusion I am not going to make drastic changes to my first draft of the album cover, but I am intending to change the font colour and the background.

Comparison of the album cover I made and a album cover of another Indie band similar to the one we selected

For this task I picked the band called the Mystery Jets this band are a British Indie band, I feel this is the same genre of music to the band we picked, the riot tapes.

This album cover is many ways is a vastly different to the first draft of my album cover. For one on this album cover there is a picture of all the band, although non of them are playing instruments which is something you may expect if a band is on the front cover, they are all their, which in some cases is odd as not many bands from the Indie genre have themselves on a album cover, this type of music is very well known for pieces of artwork or symbols on front cover of albums. This is what I can pick out as the major difference between my first album cover and the album cover of this band, my album cover is in contrast very simple.

Another major difference between this album cover and mine is that this cover is a picture, mine is not,mine is created via Photoshop, starting with a bog standard background and working from that. However with my album cover I did go with clear text stating what the album name was and the band, with the bands name higher than the album name, the same technique is used here. I used this as it is seen as to be the normal layout for a album, however for Indie music in the past there have been albums covers set out differently with the text the other way round or sometimes not text, just the bands logo to let fans and followers know that this album is of that certain band.

Our music video

First draft of album cover