Evaluation Question 4

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


Below is a Wix site to answer question 4 of the evalution.
Below also is a link incase the Wix site does not appear on my page for any reason.


http://www.wix.com/mcne5013/evaluation


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Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After showing our music video to the class, we asked some of the students to give us some feedback as to what they think of our efforts.

I interviewed a few class members and this is what they had to say…

Some other students gave me some written feedback:

'It is very charming. The lip-syncing is very slick. Some of the shots are very striking especially the sun and field scenes. However, is the song not about how the protagonist cannot get the person she admires, so how come she is smiling? The dog is quite random as well. On the other hand the dog adds normality to the music video, this sets it apart from other music videos, which means it can become more relatable for the audience. You have also flattered Imogen very well with the dull colours and bleaching which follows one of the conventions of music videos.' - Lily Vetch

‘I thought over all you have a brilliant video. The editing is smooth and to the beat throughout. You have used a number of different techniques which work well together, stop motion, slow motion and the computer thing which is my best bit :)

You do not have too many different effects which is bonus. And nice twist at the end with Matt..
The way you return to the lip sync holds the whole thing together, and they are on time.

I do not have any criticisms; i really like it’ - Maud Start

‘I really like the way you've put a male in the video to relate 'Imogen's' feelings for him. I also like that the whole thing is in the same colour wash black and whitish.
I don’t like that the boy only appears right at the beginning and right at the end, would have been better if he appeared at other stages too. BUT LOVE IT!’ – Teresa Alba Vazquez



We also put our films on facebook:

We also have looked at the data on youtube to see where our film has been played and by whom:

There has been a nice mixture of positive and negative feedback in regards to the music video. Overall I am happy with the feedback as I can see where each individual is coming from when the point out negative features. Looking at the statics from youtube, our audience is largey dominated by females. I can see this point myself as when I spoke to others about my video, if they were male they didn’t really have a lot to say as I do believe they struggled to make the same emotional connection as the females will have done.


However, I do think the storyline is unclear. We have tried to keep a mysterious theme within our film. The protagonists face does not become of image until just before the first chorus is played. As well with Matt the male in our film, we show his body up to his neck at the very beginning but do not show his face to keep the viewer uncertain as to who the character is. The basic idea behind the video is that the girl is in love with the boy but she can never have him. She is feeling lost and lonely so has a great relationship with her dog as ‘a god is a man’s best friend’ she finds comfort in having the dog around to fill her gap. We have kept mystery a key part as the song is all about this boy but you don’t know who is and you really want to find out. So, in the last few seconds the boy appears on screen but this time a shot is taken from his feet right up to his face allowing the audience to make reference to who the song is about and who the boy from the beginning was. Overall this was the only negative point that we received in our feedback. If I was to do this again, I would defiantly have made the storyline clearer and would possibly have shown some shots of how the couple had been before they had split. In a style quite like a foggy distant memory to express how long it had been since they had ended their relationship and I would have used effects such as opacity to play two clips over one another and the old film effect as the jitter on that effect would complement the idea of a foggy distant memory.

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

Advertisement Poster

FINISHED POSTER

Finished Digipak

Above is each panel in large.Below is the finished flat pack of our digipak

The image below is an annotation explaining the reasons for our images and where they have been placed.

Flat plan of digipak

The Conventions of CD Advertisement.

Key to promotion of albums is their poster announcing the release.

 

 This is a good example of an album advertisement. The font and colours reflect the name of the album. The information is easy to read and clear. Having an image allows the viewer to see who the artist is and allows them to judge what style of music you think they will have.

For our advertisement we will need to stick with vintage and contemporary theme. Sticking to the font courier new, this gives our digipak a recognizable branding. We are going to have to take good images which reflect the genre and style that links to our type of music yet we will remain with a simplistic look. 

Investigation of CD Sales.

CD sales dropped dramatically in the last five years due to illegal downloading from the Internet and the widespread CD burning. The easy access to this has made it such an easy adjustment and for those that cannot afford all of the music they want. It allows those to have free music on demand.

The Universal Group, which is one of the largest record cooperation, cut the sales prices up to 25% in the last two years, in order to increase sales hoping to grab the attention of fans and to decrease the amount of illegal download.

Comparing the sales figures of 2009 and 2010 the figure dropped from 147 million to 114 million this year. 

In 2007 CD's accounted for 90% of the album sales in the United States, with digital accounting for the other 10%. In 2009 the CD sales were only 79% whereas the the digital download of music had increased up to 20%. 

Nowadays it is not so much the sales of CD's, which makes the artist earn his money but more iTunes and other online downloading sites. That change came along because it is so easy for everyone to access Internet anytime and anywhere. In addition iTunes also allows the buyer to buy only one song of a whole album, which makes it more convenient for some people.

The sales of CD's changed rapidly over five years due to the introduction online download especially illegal download. Its popularity is still on the up and increasing rapidly. Artists have resulted in making money by doing more live concerts and also headlining and playing a set at music festivals. Festivals are extremely popular and are an easy catchment area to promote the artists music. 

Existing Digipak

We have taken the album cover of Adele's new album '21' and copied it using photoshop.

Below is the edited and copied version. However, we struggled to change the thickness of the font to match exactly to the original album artwork.

Digipak Cover

Starting editing on a design for the back of our digipak.

Difference between Digipak and CD case

 A DIGIPAK

 A JEWEL CD CASE

 

A digipak is a kind of CD case. It is a six-panel product. It is made from paper and consists of a plastic disc tray that has been fitted inside on one of the panels and the other remaining panels are left for artwork, lyrics, track lists and front covers etc. It was considered the environmentally friendly version of CD cases, although they have remained less common as they suffer more from wear and tear than jewel cases. Also they have remained less common due to the fact they have higher manufacturing costs.

A jewel case/ CD case consists of 3 pieces of plastic put together. This is the more traditional package for a CD. It has the same if not similar plastic CD holder and then the casing on the front and back has paper slotted inside with information on the album and artist.

In our opinion the digipak has more value. It has 6 sides, allowing for more artwork and information of the artist to be obtained whilst also the promotional benefits are greatly increased. The more allowance of space means the artists can promote themselves with more than just their CD but with significant information about themselves adding a personal touch which people do like to see when looking at the concept of celebrities. The item is also seen as a collectable therefore meaning it needs to have that added feature to make it something others want to keep. One of the other key features is also the environmentally friendly touch, the environment is becoming extremely important to our generation and if others have a slight feeling of ‘doing good for the planet’ it adds to the purchase. 

What we need to include in our digipak:

• The artist name
• The album title
• Album artwork
• Disc holder
• The names of the songs on the album
• The copyright label
• The record company
• Album credits
• Barcode

Star Image

Star Image on Prezi

Font Testing.

We have looked on Microsoft Word to experiment with possible fonts to use for our digipak, posters and anything regarding the sale or advertisement of our album. The fonts have to be consistent throughout the advertising process, in order to create regularity and familiarity. Our favourite font is the 6^th one down, which is Courier New. We think this font compliments the style of our genre and its simplicity features relate well to our artists.

Promotion Investigation

THE DRUMS

The Drums are an American indie pop band from Brooklyn, NY. In December 2009, the band was shortlisted as one of the 15 music acts for the BBC Sound of 2010.

“The Drums have got simplicity down to a fine art. The Drums’ newly minted blend of surf-rock and indie pop was as canny as it was minimal and uncomplicated. Song titles from their self-titled debut, from Let’s Go Surfing to Best Friends, were never likely to mask socio-political treatises” BBC REVIEW.

Album Releases:

‘The Drums’

Released: 7^th Jun 2010

Label: Moshi Moshi/Island Records

‘Portamento’

Released: 2^nd September 2011

Label: Island Records

The albums artwork is of a photograph containing two people. There is a young boy stood alongside his mother or grandmother perhaps, whose eyes have been edited through computer graphics; his eyes have been filled in red to possibly symbolize possession and the Devil. This connotation is also given through props in the background, a wooden Cross is hung directly above the boy’s head onto the wall. The picture is again of an 80s style, like in the “Best Friend” music video; it could possibly have been taken by a Polaroid or film camera, rather than digital image.
The album title appears to the top right of the cover, typed in large black, bold font inside a white box. The box also contains directly underneath, in smaller font, the band name and a track list. This isn’t very common in typical albums, as the cover usually focuses mainly on the image, rather than font.

Posters

Youtube Channel

Digipak

After making our music video, we now have to create a digipak that complements the style,genre and artist etc. We have taken a still image from one of the shots used in our music video and have edited it using a polariod background and then added the text at the botttom.
This will not be the final cover for our digipak it was created simply to play around with ideas and see which direction we hope to venture. We think we shall create something similar possibly using the polariod effect but we shall take new images for the cover. As in our music video we don't actually show the main characters face until the first chorus we feel that we should have her face on the front of the album cover to divert away from too much mystery.

Feedback

'It is very charming. The lip-syncing is very slick. Some of the shots are very striking especially the sun and field scenes. However, is the song not about how the protagonist cannot get the person she admires, so how come she is smiling? The dog is quite random as well. On the other hand the dog adds a normality to the music video, this sets it apart from other music videos, which means it can become more relatable for the audience. You have also flattered Imogen very well with the dull colours and bleaching which follows one of the conventions of music videos.' - Lily Vetch

I thought over all you have a brilliant video.

The editing is smooth and to the beat throughout.

You have used a number of different techniques which work well together, stop motion, slow motion and the computer thing which is my best bit :)

You do not have too many different effects which is bonus. And nice twist at the end with Matt..

the way you return to the lip sync holds the whole thing together, and they are on time.

I do not have any criticisms, i really like it x - Maud Start

FINISHED!

Changes to video...

We have decided to add a shot of Matt in the beginning. For this, we have reused the shot that is at the end, but, at the start, just before the camera shows his face the shot cuts to keep the mystery of the character. The reason we reused the shot of the camera moving from him feet to his face is so that at the end we can reveal who the character is. We thought that the should be a shot of Matt to start with instead of him just appearing at the end because we feel that it gives more of a story line and links everything together more successfully.

Updated draft...

2nd Draft

1st Draft

Rough Edit of the first 45 seconds and chorus of our music video.

Lip Sync

We have been working on the lip sync in our music video. 

Our protagonist in our film is also going to be doing lip sync. We have done a few practices and Imogen is really quite good and it looks like it will turn out very well. The only slight problem we are having is keeping her from smiling when filming. This is not a major problem but potentially detracts from the emotional side of the lyrics and this is rather vital as she is lip syncing the lyrics.

Editing

We have been working on the editing of our film.


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The process has been going well. We have been working mostly on the first 30 seconds and the chorus. Working a long side the idea of our colour scheme black/white and red. We have struggled  with our storyline as we feel it is not portraying the image we would like. After discussion we are going to take some more footage over the course of the week and see what we can work with to hopefully merge our forsty image into a clear one.

Risk Assessment

Here is a risk assessment we have created which will act as a guideline fior any potentially hazardous happenings during our filming and what we need to aware of. We have'nt found there to be an majorly dangerous aspects to our filming so there should not be any problems. However since writing this we shall be more aware of any possible disasterous situations.