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

To finish our product we had to use a lot of different technical equipment. One thing we used was 'Facebook', we used this to get in touch with our selected audience and post our work for them to give us constructive feedback, this was helpful as it gave us an idea of the different things we could use to grab our audiences attention.

Another thing we used was 'Youtube' as this was the best way to look at products that we wanted our product to be similar too for example the Kooks or the Artic monkeys. Also we used it for research and planning purposes as we could type in a genre of music such as 'indie' and search products that we wanted features of. This was very useful as it could give us a better idea of some of the features we could use that would make our product seem more realistic but at the same time target our target audience. For example in the Arctic Monkeys - When the sun goes down (youtube will not let me embed this) it is a low-fi video with quick cuts, It also helped us with the location of our video, For example a lot of the indie music videos we watched the charters in the video's were mostly outside, therefor although some of our scenes are inside the majority of it is outside.

Another thing we used to construct our final product was Premiere Pro. This it what me and my group used the most out of everything we used. The reason for this is because premiere pro is a editing and music software, it allowed us to put all of our cuts and shot onto it off the camera we used, this meant we could put all of our filming that was on the camera onto the software then put it in the order that was right. It also allowed us to cut different parts of the filming we didn't want so lip syncing was done with a lot more ease. Another thing that premier pro allows us to do is we were able to put the song we used underneath the filming clips so when lip syncing we could tell easily if the people we used in our video were to slow or fast then work on that problem. Overall premier pro was extremely helpful and could not of made the video without it.

The last thing we used was a programme called 'Adobe Photoshop' . This was very useful with our print work as many pictures we took had to be edited and extra detail such as colourcast had to be added to make the pictures relate to our genre.

The programme we used to put all our work on is a website called blogger which is what i use every lesson in media. It is like an online folder where you can keep all you coursework together. This makes it a lot more helpful cause the risk of loosing work on blogger is very small. Also the teacher and others can see how much i have learnt and progressed since the start of the course and task.

One way in which i could have improved is if i had a access to a HD camera. Me and my group used a normal Nikon D60 DSLR camera and i think that if we used a HD camera our video would of just looked more professional because of the quality of the camera is far greater.
Throughout my final product i used media 2.0 to help me in many ways, For example i used Facebook to get audience view on certain things such as my print work and moodboard. The reason i did this is because i wanted my print work to suit my final media product as much as i could so i thought getting the audiences views would make it easy for me and would let me know if i missed any important information or detail out.

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

I got my ideas from the site youtube in which we searched relevant videos to give us an idea of how we wanted ours, we watched videos from artists such as The Kooks, Artic Monkeys and Supergrass.

We used these types of bands because they are of an 'indie' genre and are stereotypical videos which have a large ranged audience. After listening to these sorts of videos we decided we all liked this genre which inspired us and gave us the motivation to put together our video.

As you can see there are some similarities of the two because i wanted my product to look at professional as i could make it. For example they are quite dull simplistic colours to reflect on the indie nature. Another example that shows that they are similar in both digipacks are the pictures themselves, The characters in the pictures are very lively or doing anything over the top, They are very simple and straightforward shots. The reason i did this is because is shows that the indie lifestyle is very laid back and relaxing and a lot of the time they show a calm 'dont care' take on life.

Before we started filming we had to get feedback on what people thought of our reasearch and planning work, to do this we set up our own facebook group and invited members who we thought matched the genre of 'indie' to comment on our work that we posted, this was one of the questiions and answers...


Question
'Does the Production work target the audience we wanted?'
Answer ...
' Yes, i feel the indie theme is portrayed well. Also the black and white editing you used looks good. The costume and people used go with the target audience and are a typical indie group which your target audience would approve of.'

This answer shows that our audience understands what we are aiming for.


When watching our final product and comparing it to a real music video there are many differences. I think there are a few reasons for this the first reason being is that we are limited to the amount of technology that is available in the college compared to the amount that a 'real' product would have. Also although me and my group were planning on a low-fi video anyway but the budget is also a huge reason to why the videos are different because the 'real' product would have a bigger budget meaning they can be a lot more creative are not worry about cost but me and my group had no budget.

The theorist i wanted to keep my attention on was Steve Neale and his theory way 'Audience take pleasure from genre because of instances of repetition and difference' . that is, they want generic conventions so that they no what to expect, but they also want to see variations within these conventions so that they are able to differentiate between products and don't get bored with seeing generic texts.

Final production work

Rough production work

This is what we have got of our production work so far, obviously we need to get a few more things together but this is just a rough idea of what it is going to look like.

Story Board

Research and planning: My facebook group

This is a facebook group we have made so that we can post our production work on there and have people give us some feedback on it and help us with any improvements needed.

Research and planning: My pitch

This is my pitch which introduces and gives you an idea of how I want my music video and roughly the essentials that I need to create it such as the audience profile, other existing videos which have similar features.

Final digipack and advert

Research and planning: Costumes and Props

When considering costumes and props you have take into account if it will fit in with your genre and what kind of representation for example for a rap video generally has a lot of black womem being shown in a sexual nature. Seeing as our genre is indie we are going to have some key features and costumes, firstly we are going to need all the actors to wear skinny jeans and wear jackets as shown in this table below...

Costume/Prop item	Source	Potential cost	Person in charge
Skinny Jeans	From home	Nothing	Alex
Indie style jackets	From home	Nothing	Chris
Cigarettes	From shop or home	£3	Abby

As our video genre is going to be indie the video will be a bit different to everyday music videos and will have different conventions, we most likely wont have any props as our video will mostly be filmed in the woods so will be very simplistic and our shots will be based around the scenary, the video below is of 'the kooks naive' this is kind of similar to how we want our video and as you noticed its very simplistic and the costumes are how we want ours with barely any props..

Research and planning: Locations + health and safety

When considering the location of our music video, we had to take in to consideration several different aspects. Firstly, the weather conditions are fairly unpredictable at the moment, with lots of snow often followed by rain. We had to think about whether it would be sensible to film outside at the time of year we are hoping to, and if we did want to, the whereabouts of this. At college, we have a large wooded area which appears to be the perfect place to film because there is a lot of room and it is easily accessible to all performers/cast members and filming crew. We also had to take into consideration the risk aspect of filming in the woods because we had to think about what could happen. We analysed the situation and decided that there was little risk when in the woods, except for falling over or getting wet with rain. We have thought about the weather and decided the video would be fine to film in most weather conditions and are not worried about wind or rain or snow or sunshine.. As you can see by the picture below the surroundings are ideal for us to work in as it fits in with the genre we are aiming for and gives off an indie feel ...

Whenever doing any work we have to think about the health and safety issues and complete a risk assesment to assess any dangers that we may come across and figure out how we can do our best to prevent anything from going wrong. Belwo is a risk assesment i have filled in for working outdoors, as you can see there are not too many hazards but it is still essential for our well being that we do this...

Potential Danger	Potential outcomes	Actions to avoid potential outcomes	Further comments
Falling down a ditch in the woods	Getting seriously hurt	Walk on the paths rather than near the ditch	always be careful when travelling
Dropping college equipment	Breaking the college equipment	Always keep the equipment safe	Keep the equipment in the hands of someone responsible
Weather conditions	Falling over/breaking equipment	Only work in suitable weather conditions	Don’t work in rain, snow etc.
Wonky paving	Seriously harming you e.g. broken bones.	Make sure the paving is inline and not to take the route if it is not

Research and planning: Peformance and casting

These are the performers that will be featured in our production work, all of our intended actors are all suitable as they all live relatively close too each other and go to the same college therefore we will be able to meet up and plan our work together. We have not left anything to chance as we have already ditched some other actors that we were going too use as they were unreliable and unwilling to work in the environment we wanted. We will all hold regular meetings to discuss how we are going to go about doing the production work and different ideas to take into account.

Research and planning: Time management

When creating practical production work in media it is essential that you take into account your time management. This is a rough plan of my time management and how i am going to go about doing my production work, obviously this is only rough so i will be able to add on to it once i have booked up the camera and know exactly when and where i am going to be able to do my shots.