Finished evaluation!

Apologies for not blogging in ages, we have had a very hectic time finishing up our ancillary products, music video and now our evaluation. Finally our evaluation is complete. Here all four questions are:

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




Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

Prezi question 2

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Evaluation question 3

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






Enjoy :) THANK YOU!!!

Our final music video!

This is our final and complete music video! Hooraaaaaay :)



Enjoy!

Final magazine poster

This is our final magazine poster advertising the CD that our track would be on, we feel it fits with a generic magazine poster and contains stereotypical aspects that a poster should have.

FINAL CD SLEEVE

(Don't take notice of the 'front cover' 'left cover' as I used different ones for each cover)

CD SLEEVE

We have finally finished the CD sleeve yaaaaay!!!

Before I post the CD sleeve itself, throughout the process I create a very brief powerpoint showing each stage I went through to create the entire CD sleeve. I think it shows each layer really well so I'll pop that up first!

Cd sleeve presentation from Carla Smith

A little look at our evaluation so far

Here's a very very rough draft of our evaluation - 
Ruby has almost finished the 3rd question however it was on her computer so it would have taken an aaggeee to get it over to my computer then import it into the powerpoint, but we will add that into our evaluation as soon as it's finished. 
The movie clips we have added in are not complete either - this is really just a quick look at what our final evaluation will look like! 

Update

Over the last few weeks Ruby and myself have been extremely busy, and similiarly throughout this half term holiday we have been busy each day with rehearsals hence the lack of blog posts. So here's a quick update of where we are at;

SO, two weeks ago we made plans to reshoot every single shot that we needed to redo and also to do the photoshoot with Amber and Max that would help us finish our ancillary projects. However, about 3 days before the reshoot was planned Max unfortunately broke his leg, and 3 days after needed to go in for an operation on it - of course this meant we were unable to reshoot for the time being and also we were unable to decide when we could reschedule due to Max's injury being extremely bad.

We also realised that with his injury Max has to be on crutches constantly, and also has a mechanism on his leg keeping it all in place - this would have a terrible impact on the video in terms of continuity, after discussing with our teacher we decided there was nothing really we could do for this and it would have to become a 'joke' throughout the video that in one shot he has crutches and the next he doesn't. Ruby and I wanted there to be another way around this as we feel it will just make the video look terrible but in all honesty there's nothing else we can do for it. 

In the holidays we tried to schedule a day that we could all reshoot the footage and shoot the ancillary task photos. Unfortunately there wasn't a single day that everyone could make, this was because of things like Ruby, Amber and I all having university auditions throughout the week, and then the whole cast were at full day rehearsals 3 of the days. Again there's nothing we could do about this.

Ruby and I have discussed our options from here, we both feel we would really like to reshoot as much footage as possible but next week we have a school show wednesday- saturday, and I am away the Monday and Tuesday. After this we have a group of Americans coming to stay with us for two weeks and by this time the deadline will be over. The only thing we can think of doing is to try and make the music video look as good as possible via editing and cutting and chopping parts of it - we are aware that at the moment our music video is no where near as good as we want it to be but in these circumstances there's little we can do. 

Today we are continuing to work on our evaluation and our ancillary tasks, the latter is difficult without the photographs we want to use so we would like to take some photos when we are back at school in a lunchtime possibly. 

Bye for now!

Research of past evaluations

So here's the second video that I'm going to analyse: (only Q.4)




Good elements:

• He mentions a lot of different technologies that he's used. This shows that he is experienced with media and technology, but also that he used the most up to date software and programs to make his video the best that he could. He mentions everything that he has used throughout the entire process, and gives a clear understanding of how he used them and why.
• He uses Quicktime to produce screen recordings of everything that he is doing whilst he is saying. For example, when he talks about Youtube, he shows himself clicking on the certain video that he was researching and how he found it. I found this extremely clear and very simple to understand because it shows exactly what he is talking about, rather than the audience having to guess. He shows a lot of excerpts from his music video throughout, and gives the audience a clear understanding of exactly what his music video, locations, actress and mise-en-scene looked like.
• Throughout this video he has used relevant and up to date knowledge and vocabulary to make his analysis very technical. He has used the vocabulary in all the correct places and gives the impression that he knows exactly what he is talking about.

Bad elements:

• I think that this video had too much content! He talks about everything in this video that he used at all times such as emails etc. Some of the things he was analysing I found myself getting quite bored because it wasn't really relevant to the filming and planning processes.
• I also think that his analysis could have been a little more in depth. Because he was trying to fit a lot of things in, he didn't include as much analysis as he could have. However, he does fit a small amount of good quality analysis into the video, and his analysis is very insightful and reflective.

So after watching this video I've learnt that we need to include a lot of good quality analysis, rather than trying to fit every bit of technology that we used in to the video. I've also learnt that by using quicktime and adding screenshots, and pieces of the video into the evaluation, it makes the video eye catching and entertaining. 

Research of past evaluations

So we're currently in the process of planning our evaluation. We've filmed some of question one, and we're currently fiddling about with Prezi and powerpoint to make sure that we're 100% confident with them when we come to making our evaluation. I've decided to research 2 past students evaluations and analyse the good points and bad points of each video.

Here's the first video I'm going to be analysing:



Good elements:

• Her analysis of Goodwin's theory and other aspects involving her music video is very indepth and insightful. The way she analyses her video is clever as she constantly refers to her video and how the decisions she made contributed to her overall product. She also uses very relevant and specific technical vocabulary, making her sound intelligent and making her sound like she knows exactly what she's talking about.
• She analyses the technical products surrounding her music video very well and adds really in-depth analysis and looks at different aspects that we actually haven't considered when analysing.

Bad elements:

• There isn't enough variety in this video. She talks throughout, but also has the words she is saying flashing up on the screen. This is pointless, because she could have added relevant pictures, video or excerpts from her music video to make the video more exciting to watch. 
• The way she sounds also isn't very appealing. She sounds quite bored and the tone of her voice is quite monotonous. As she's done all of the 4 evaluation questions in one video, her voice becomes slightly repetitive and I became quite annoyed listening to it. Also she seems to keep stumbling over her words, as if she isn't qutie sure what she's taking about, or that she's dictating from a script. This is quite frustrating because the sentences don't quite flow and make some parts difficult to understand. 
• She could have used a lot more screen shots and excerpts from her actual music video. She seems to only be showing the same three shots every time. This wasn't very good for me because I haven't seen her music video before, so I had no idea what the actual video looked like. I managed to get a vagye view of what the video looked like from her analysis but she could have shown her video, or played the song she used, to give me more of an idea of what her final product looked like.

I like this evaluation, but this proves that we need to use different forms of technology but also to not sound bored when we're reading from our script!! This also shows me that we need to use a lot of examples from our final product, and possibly other artists videos just to give the audience watching a clearer picture of our motives and final outcomes. 

More to follow :)

Video responses to our first draft

So our film still isn't entirely finished as we still have a lot of things to re-film and to modify. We're working really hard on getting this done, and we plan to film next monday which isn't too far away! However we're pretty confident that we can get the entire filming done in one day which is fantastic. This lesson we've been filming people responding to our first draft, to see what they liked and didn't like etc.We'll probably also film their responses to it after our film is 100% complete but for now we decided to let them see our first draft. Here's le videos:

Amber and Mae:



And here's Ellie and Rory:



We're probably going to be using excerpts from both of these videos in our evaluations. Thanks to these four for our feedback, we really appreciate it!

More to follow :)

Research; 3rd evaluation analysis

As I had looked at a previous evaluation that was made on Prezi, I really liked the idea of the website and how it made the presentation look. Ruby and I have planned to use Prezi in our evaluation, but to get some practise on how it works and the kinds of things it can do I've decided to create this evaluation analysis on Prezi, I think this will give me some tips and ideas prior to our evaluation!

Research; evaluation analysis

Here's the second evaluation I looked at and analysed;

Researchl; past evaluation analysis

As Ruby and I will soon be creating our evaluation, I am going to be looking at and analysing 3 past student's evaluations!

Here's the first evaluation I will be looking at;



Good points:

click here for good points pt.1!
(all my points wouldn't fit on one cute koala so I've had to make two!)
click here for good points pt.2!

Bad points:

click here for bad points pt.1

click here for bad points pt.2

Overall this is a really good evaluation - it kept my attention the whole time and the use of technology was shown well!

Keeping up to date

So for the last few days I've been really struggling because We've had to adapt our magazine advert entirely and we've realy struggled to come up with new ideas that we both like. Finally we've banded together and come up with an idea that we think will work really well. However, this will require planning and a lot of very fast editing, picture taking etc. I think we are both ready to get our magazine advert done and dusted so we can get properly started with our evaluation and the completion of our film. So when we go and film and revise new shots next week, (in the process of organising this) we've also decided to take a few pictures to be in our magazine advert. For our new advert we only need one picture, but we need to take a few to ensure that we get the correct picture.

Firstly, our old idea. Originally we wanted this picture:

Then we were going to have 'we intertwined - the album' and then 'the hush sound written below it. These were going to be placed dead centre, directly in between Amber and Max. However we realised that this is a horizontal picture and would require a double page spread. We didn't like this idea as much because most audience members don't find double page spreads very interesting to look at. Also, the picture isn't high res enough and when we began to edit the colour we found that the picture began to go blurry the further and further we got with editing.

Our second and final idea is a picture of Max and Amber standing either side of a tree looking at the camera. We would take this photo when it's sunset and try and get the silouhette of the tree reflected on the ground. When it came around to editing the photo we would either have the writing inside the tree or below the tree. We want to try and fit in with as many natural and neutral colours and themes as we can, so that this ties in with our video and our digi-pak. 

We'll be taking these pictures next week at the same time as our filming. We're trying to organise this either for monday or for thursday depending on when Max and Amber can do. We also need to stay fairly late and on a day that is sunny so that the silouhette is shown properly and so that the sky looks pretty! We need to get on organising this asap. Meanwhile, in lessons we have been carrying on with editing and colour saturation etc. The video is really coming along and is nearing completion!

More to follow :)

Update; ancillary tasks!

For the last 2 days I have been working on the CD sleeve! 

I've changed the layout of the sleeve now and will now be going with a slightly simpler one due to time restrictions and also Ruby and I agreed we can make it more interesting with this layout.

On photoshop I have edited the four photos of both Amber and Max that we want to use and they are looking really good! The only problem I have is that the four photos look very similar in terms of editing, I think I'm going to overcome this by trying out different techniques as the ones i've tried so far don't make it look much better! Black and white doesn't make it look that nice as it's bland and doesn't go with the theme of the sleeve. 

I've also made a small very brief prototype to work from, obviously this is a very brief post as I plan to do an entire post on the editing of my photos this weekend. Then I will create a post on the process of my CD sleeve. 

Back from Christmas!

Ok, so we're back from the christmas holidays and we've realised that we really need to get on with our video and ancillary tasks. As we're behind form America we've got a lot to catch up on, lots of things to finish and a LOT of planning to do for our evaluation. I've made a little to-do list for me for the next few weeks. Our final deadline for everything including the blog is the 15th March! So here's my to-do list:

-Priority: FINISH FILMING. We still have three more shots to film and these are essential for getting our film completed otherwise there will be gaps, we've decided to arrange a meeting with Amber and Max to film the missing shots, which leads me on to my next point: -

-Organise a shoot with Max and Amber. This is also essential because we need to finish ourfilms as quickly as possible! This should be happening next week.

-We are currently editing the photos for our digi-pak, but I still have a lot to do in terms of what we're going to have on the actual digi-pak. Hopefully I should be drawing and researching a few things I can put on the digi-pak today.

-Begin the planning for our evaluation. We've only recently been introduced to the planning and the beginning of our evaluation. In the next few weeks we will be discussing and planning what we want to put in our evaluation in terms of different media technology. We've already decided that we want one of the questions to be in video form, and possibly one in the form of a blog post? However we still need to plan what to put into each question and then put those into writing etc.



I've got a lot I can be getting on with, so more to follow! :)

Planning; cd sleeve

So we're back from the christmas holidays and ready to finish both our video and ancillary tasks! 

Ok so I need to create the CD sleeve which I've already done a post on and also I've already posted about my research into existing CD sleeves. 

So I had done a draft sleeve on my laptop but unfortunately a lot of my documents have been wiped recently including that. I'm not too fussed as I think I can probably recreate it quite easily but I will be doing all photoshop stuff on the school computers from now on as I'm scared incase it happens again...


Here's my little to do list for the CD sleeve;

• Upload photo shoot photos onto school computers 
• Recreate basic CD sleeve on school computers
• Edit photo's ready to insert into the CD sleeve
• Add photos and logos/barcodes into CD sleeve
• Print off, put together
• Redo any bits that didn't look good.
• Make final!