Evaluation Question 4

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

The technologies used for our coursework include Blogger and YouTube. Blogger is used as a way to present all of our work in one place in an easily understandable order. I find that Blogger makes it much easier for me to keep my work organized and makes it easier for me to know which pieces of work are completed. As I have used Blogger before on previous coursework, I already had an understanding of how it worked, meaning that I didn’t have to spend time getting to grips with how to used it. I was able to use Blogger to my best ability as the layout makes it very simple to know exactly where everything is. One of the most convenient things about Blogger is how easy it is to embed files from other sites such as YouTube meaning that everything can be in one place.

To design the digipak and magazine advert, I used Photoshop. After taking the photographs, with a Nikon DSLR camera, that would be used within our digipak, we put them into photoshop and altered some of the colours and added filters that we thought were relevant to assist in making our digipak and magazine advert tie in better with our music video. I already had prior knowledge of photoshop so took on most of the work in this area. The other members in my production group assisted in the decision making of what we wanted our digipak and magazine advert to look like.

When filming our music video, we used a tripod and Sony HD camera. This camera shoots footage in a high quality meaning that we could get the best possible result for our music video. The camera had the built in function of autofocus, but as a group we decided that we could get a much more accurate focus if we did this manually. This was very effective and we found that we could get a very crisp image. When filming the music video, we would all check the camera positioning and focus before pressing film to ensure that we were all happy with how it looked. We attempted to do a focus pull technique, but when it came to editing the footage, we decided that it didn’t fit with the video.

To edit our music video we began by looking into using Final Cut Express, but after many difficulties with our footage not importing, we decided that it would be best to at least make a start using iMovie. After we began the process of editing the footage using iMovie, we made the decision that we could do most of the thing that we wanted to include in our video on iMovie so decided against switching to Final Cut Express. To ensure that we got the best possible final result, we always referred back to our storyboard and shot list when filming and editing.

I decided to use Blogger to carry out my evaluation questions as it is the most convenient way of keeping all of the necessary information in a simple and easy to manage format.  

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From the feedback that we collected from our audience in the initial stages of production, we found that the majority of people asked liked the sped up shots that the used. They felt that it was visually very effective and also fit well with the chosen genre. As this feedback was collected in the very early stages of productions, we had a number of comments made about things that they felt we needed to change, such as some shots being too long and a few shadows in the background of shots.

Rough Cut 1


Audience Feedback

Good points:

• the speed up shots look good and fit the genre of the song
• the makeup looks good and works well
• the costume fits with the narrative of the video
• the camera is steady
• the effect used on the shot looks good
• the shots are well framed

Points to improve:

• more shots are the band are needed
• some shots are too long
• see some unintentional shadows in some clips
• music needs to be added
• add all clips to finish the video

Improvements we will be making to our next rough cut:

• To improve our music video we will film a large number of artist shots and more acting shots so we will have enough to finish the video
• we will also cut the length of some of the shots to keep the audience engaged in the video
• we will remove shots that do not work or have issues such as shadows and replace then with shots that will look good in their place
• we will also add music in the next stage of creating our music video

 Rough Cut 2

Audience Feedback

Good Points

• Lovely sped up shots.
• Good amount of cuts.
• Good guitar and drum shots.
• Good editing.
• like how the pace speeds up towards the end.
• like how it goes with the beat of the song.
• Locations fit the genre.
• Good angles of instruments.
• Creative editing.
• Good lip syncing.
• Editing matches the chaotic feeling.
• Flashing works well.
• Visuals to genre work perfectly together, definite style.
• Good use of different camera angles.
• The pace fit with the music.
• Costumes are well thought out.

Improvements

• Shadow moves across frame. We are going to re-edit this shot, we thought it looked good with the shadow but others thought it wasn't necessary.
• Some shots are too long. Once we have framed out the whole song we plan on editing some shots shorter and adding different new angles.
• First shot not relevant. We used the wrong part of the clip. We plan to change it and then see if people still find in irrelevant.
•  Lip syncing isn't in sync at the beginning. We need to cut the beginning of the shot where he breaths because that's what makes it seem out of sync.
• Some shots are darker the others. We plan on brightening the darker shots. But the band shots are intentionally brighter then the acting.
• A bit repetitive try a different location? We have another location planned and will hopefully be filming there before Rough Cut 3.