Evaluation

EVALUATION

Question One 

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

Question Two:

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

When creating my music video and ancillary texts, I made it so that all the products linked together in some way. Therefore, there are different logos,fonts and colours that I have used throughout.  For example, when creating my ancillary texts I made a logo for my artist so that this would be recognisable to the audience. This is a popular convention that artists use in order to gain popularity and appeal to their audience.

This is the logo that appears on all of my ancillary texts and it also uses the same font for all of them. Therefore it is consistent throughout.  

                                                          

Another thing that is consistent in all the products I have created is the costume. I decided to keep it this way on all the products so like the font/colour it was recognisable. Therefore, an audience will be able to see this and immediately recognise the artist. However, if i were to do it differently next time I would change the costume from the music video to the ancillary text to show some difference.

(From Music Video) 

(From Ancillary text) 

If I was to create my products again  would change and do them differently. I would create more motifs for the audience to be able to recognise this easily. 

Font: 

The font that I used on all my final products were similar in order to create continuity. 

(Music Video) 

(Digi Pak) 

Magazine Advertisement

Question Three:

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Ancillary Texts: 

After finalising my ancillary texts, I got feedback from a range of different people including adults and students and this is what they said:

• "On the back cover the text is hard to read so you could increase the size and make it bigger so it's easier to see" (Age:18)
• "The writing and font stand out on the CD well and is easy to read" (Age: 17) 
• "The genre is not easy to identify as it is uses unconventional features" (Age: 19) 
• "I like the way you used continuity throughout the poster and the digipak as it makes the artist easy to identify" (Age: 50) 
• "The logo you have used throughout the ancillary texts is good as it shows continuity, however you could vary the background image" (age: 18) 

Overall, I got mixed feedback from the audience that I asked. They said to improve I could make some of the text easier to read and make some of the features stand out more. However, a few people liked the continuity I had used through the logo, the colour scheme and the fonts. 


I made a questionnaire to get feedback on my final music video and sent this out to a range of people via social media. The questionnaire included seven questions.

The results:

In my results, 3 out of 4 of the people who took my survey were female and 1 was male.
Half of the people who took my survey were between the ages of 17-20, one was 30+ and the other was 0-16.

The majority of my survey participants said that the genre of my music video was pop and the other stated it was R&B.
Also 3/4 of the people said that the narrative reflected the lyrics. However, one person started that to make the music video reflect the narrative more I could have focused even more on the theme of memories.

All of the people who took my questionnaire said that they enjoyed the music video and would watch it again.

I got a range of feedback stating what I could improve on in my music video and this included: making sure the video flowed together better, and changing up the shots so it could be less repetitive.

Question Four: 

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

The hardware I used for this process was:

Camera: The camera I used is the Canon sx170 IS. The advantages of using this camera is that it had a good range and focus. Therefore, my music video would be of a better quality.

SD card: My SD card was so I was able to have all my footage in one place, making it easier when editing and uploading the videos onto the computer/mac. I did not need to use an SD card reader as I uploaded the footage onto my laptop which had an SD card reader already.

Mac: I used the mac for the majority of my work. I used it when researching music videos and planning my music video. The advantages of using a mac is that it had all the software that I needed on it, including final cut pro and Photoshop. The disadvantage is that at times it can be difficult to use.

Computer: I also used a computer for some of my research as I was restricted on when I could use the macs.

USB/ Memory stick: I backed up all my work on a memory stick, this was in case any of my work got lost or destroyed. This meant I had a backup of everything.

Mobile Phone: I used my mobile phone to communicate with the person that was going to be in my music video. This made it easier so we could plan when to meet up, what the weather was going to be like and any props/costume that was needed.

Lighting: I used lighting for some shots that were indoors to make my shots better quality, however when I was outside I did not need to do so.

The software I used included:

 Blogger: Blogger was the software where I put everything together so it was all in one place to look at. The advantages of blogger is that everything can be easy to access and it can make things easy to find. However, it is difficult to reorganize so that the posts are in a chronological order.

Photoshop: I used Photoshop when editing my ancillary texts. I used Photoshop because I felt this would be the most effective and create the best result as you are able to layer images and adapt easily. As I used Photoshop last year, I was more educated on how it worked and therefore, able to create a better end product.

Final cut pro: When editing my music video, the software I used for final cut pro, I found this was easier than using the editing suites and therefore chose this. By using this I could easily put my video together.

YouTube: As this was my first time using final cut pro, I used some tutorials on YouTube to help me when I was unsure how to do something. For example, adding text over or adding different effects to make it look better aesthetically.  The tutorial below demonstrated how to add text onto my video as I did not know how to do so.

Slide share: I used slide share as a way to present my research in various stages of my work as this was a different and more creative way to do so. This also made my research more organised, neat and easy to understand.

Storyboard that:  I used this to create my storyboard for my music video. I could then use this when filming my music video and could take this with me for reference. The advantages of starboard that is it was easy and simple to use which was convenient as I hadn’t used this piece of software before. However, the disadvantages is that you could only have it for a certain time without paying therefore, if I needed to make adaptations this made it difficult.

Microsoft: I used a variety of Microsoft software when doing my planning and research such as Word and PowerPoint as this was a more different and creative way to set it all out.

Smart Survey: I used smart survey to create a questionnaire and find out from audience what appealed to them most about music video and what they preferred. These results then helped me and influence my music video.

Google: I used google when doing my research and this helped me also with my planning.

Throughout the whole process, a wide range of technology was used, both software and hardware. This meant that there were a few things that went wrong along the way.
When in post-production, I had to use a range of skills, some that I had not learnt before, and some that I used previously in my AS year. For example, within Photoshop I knew the basic skills such as layering images/cropping images and adding text. This meant that I could progress my skills and make a better final product.

One of the first problems I came across was learning how to use final cut pro, as I had never used this software before therefore, I needed to learn quite quickly so I could use this to edit my music video. This was a simple problem to overcome and I was able to quickly grasp the basic skills with help from google research and YouTube videos.

Another problem that occurred whilst editing the film was including the audio, this is something that I did not need to worry about in my ancillary texts as these were still images. However, as my music video used moving images I had to consider and adapt to this.

In the process, one thing I believe that went well was my ancillary texts as I believe that they were consistent, just like the ones that I had researched. They also showed a variety of conventions that the digipak and tour poster typically have. This could be due to the fact that I had used Photoshop before and was able to use grasp the basic skills.

Another thing that was easy to use and what went well was using blogger. As this was software I was familiar with, I was able to understand and easily organise my work so it was all in one place and in order of relevance.