How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stages of your project?

In my project my group and I used a variety of existing and new technologies in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages of creating our final promotional package.

Research and Planning

During the research stages of our project Youtube was a vital technological tool that I used for a variety of purposes. Initially I used Youtube to research into several music videos from numerous genres in an attempt to establish some conventions for each genre.

Some conventions that I established from certain genres were as followed: Rap videos are usually filmed in inner-city locations and rock & metal videos consist of individuals dressed in dark clothing.

Following this research into a variety of music genres me and group used our ipods and mobile phones to find a song that would be appropriate for our performer-me. We used our personal ipods and mobile phones rather than Youtube because they already had songs on there that we liked and felt suited our performer.

I used Youtube to textually analyse other media products from my chosen genre. My chosen genre was Indie-Soul, I researched into such artists such as Maverick Sabre, Alex Clare and Professor Green. Youtube allowed me to establish the conventions of the indie-soul genre and which artists I was mostly likely to pull off.  After using our ipods, moblies and Youtube combine we decided on Maverick Sabre and the song 'Look What I've Done To You'.

I used Maverick Sabre's offical website to research into to his existing products-including music videos, digipaks and promotional posters as well as up and coming new material.

I continued to use Youtube but I used an aspect of Youtube-audience demographics and social networking sites to help me intenfity my target audience. I also used social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to see how existing artists such as Maverick Sabre intereact with their target audiences. After researching into audience demographics and audiences using social networking sites

I discovered my target audience was 14-16 year olds girls mainly from the United Kingdom.

• Following this I used the site 'Voki' to create a  voki to represent our target audience (which was 14-16 year old girls from the Untied Kingdom).  See target audience voki here.

I used the website 'Blogger' to present all four stages of my work.  Blogger allowed me to present my work in a visual and professional way. I used Blogger last year to present my AS project so my existing skills were developed and enhanced by using Blogger again for my A2 project. I was able to use software from other technological websites and embed it  into in my blog and blog posts. 'Prezi' was a website which offered a visual alternative from the standard power point.

     

I used the technological website 'Slideshare' to upload power points from research and planning stages. This was vital as I needed to present tasks such as photo shoots, location shoots and storyboards in a tidy and professional manner. Sites such as 'Slideshare' and 'Prezi' allowed me to take care with presentation and make my project as visual as possible.

I also used a pentax K-30 DSLR camera to present the non-digital work I did for the project and for things like capturing photos of my group and I went before, during and after filming.

Creating this type of project would have been difficult for me to achieve twenty years ago without this variety of technologies such as Blogger. It would have meant I would have to rely on my own knowledge of the genre, magazines and books associated with that genre of music.

Without these technologies and the Internet I would not have been able to research into genres I was not familiar with such as the indie-soul. Without the Internet I would probably have chosen a more widespread-popular genre such as the Pop genre, where I could rely on my own knowledge rather than the Internet and viral information.

I used google docs during the research and planning stages to create a genre investigation - a sub part of my investigation was to investigate my target audience.

See genre and target audience questionnaire

Planning Continued

In regards to planning our music video and storyboard I used a Epson-GT 20000 scanner and the website Pixton. Using the scanner allowed me to draw my storyboard by hand and then scan and upload onto a computer. Having my storyboard saved as JPEG files allowed for me to upload and present them onto my blog.

Pixton offered me a different alternative to writing and drawing out storyboards with pen and paper.

Pixton allowed me to design some of storyboard ideas virtually, and create a cartoon type version of our storyboard ideas. Pixton allowed to alter facial expressions, body positions and physical actions which was key in attempting to portray our narrative to our target audience.

I felt Pixton was easier for me to use and portray our narrative than using a storyboard and a pen .I felt this because I am better with using digital technology than I am with drawing and sketching. 

See comic storyboard here

We used 'Facebook' to create a artist page for our fictional artist 'Will Fixie'. We based our artist page on Maverick Sabre's actual blog page. Sabre's blog consisted of links to his social networking sites, events, tours, tickets and his music videos. Similar to how Sabre used his blog, we used our Facebook page to post information such as events (location shoots), screenings, feedback from the audience and photographs.  

 See Maverick Sabre blog here.

I used the office programme Mircosoft Powerpoint  throughout majority of my blog to present things such as location shoots, theory ideas etc. I prefered to use Powerpoint over Prezi as I was well acquinted with Powerpoint and have been for many years. Prezi however has only been recently introduced to me but I feel is a more effeicent way to present work rather than Powerpoint.

Construction

 To film the footage for my music video my group and I used a K-30 DSLR. Using the K-30 DSLR allowed us to capture high quality footage that looked professional to us, our target audience and peers. In regards to our ancillary tasks, similar to our music video, we used a K-30 DSLR. The K-30 gave us the professional effect on the photographs we wanted for our digipak and poster advert.

I did not personally use the K-30 DSLR as I was performer that appeared in all three of the tasks-both the main task and the ancillary task. This meant that I was in front of the camera rather than behind the camera capturing footage and photographs.

On this peculiar shot, we couldn't have created it without the use of the DSLR. We created the mid-shot and the effect by adjusting the camera focus. This shot started off as an experiment but is now used in the final music video.

 I uploaded our footage to 'Youtube' in order to communicate and interact with our target audience and gain feedback. Following this I decided to upload our video onto 'Facebook' where we gained a lot of positive comments but not a lot of critical comments.  The lack of specific negative feedback meant we struggled to improve and develop our project.

  We used DAFONT.com a website that offers thousands of different texts and styles that you can use for free. We used this website when we deciding on what font to use for our ancillary tasks. We used a simple trial and error process to decide on what text and style was appropriate for our genre and ancillary tasks.

 We decided on our final font as Alabama.

 

To edit our footage my group and I used Adobe Premier Pro. My skills in Premier Pro were already at a high standard after using it at both GSCE and AS level. Our song was around 3.52 minutes long and as there was three group members, we divided into three sections-editing around 1 minute and 18 seconds each. Using Premier Pro allowed me to edit and create a professional looking music video with a limited budget.

In regards to After Effects or effects in general  we didn't really use either of these two programs in the construction of our project. We used a grey scale effect throughout our music video as we feel it emphasised the emotional feel around our video and supported our urban theme. We tended to avoid effects within our video as they are not conventional for the indie/soul genre. Furthermore as most songs from this genre are about real life issues such as drug abuse effects are not always appropriate.

 To edit and construct the ancillary tasks I used Adobe Photoshop.

At first, we decided to do two panels each as there were three group members. However in the end we all designed two panels each and added our own aspects to each panel. The ancillary tasks were a product of input from all group members. Throughout our digipak and poster we used a range of effects such as stroke, grain and crystallise. We didn't need to adjust brightness or contrast as our photographs were all captured using natural light. 
 

For our poster adverisment we also used Adobe Photoshop CS5 to edit and create our poster.

In regards to effects, we used a film grain effect on our original image and we used a

  mixture of stroke and outer glow around each piece of text. We used these peculiar effect to really emphasis there position on the poster. We included social networking widgets and social networking links on our poster as these are essenstial in modern-day society for promoting new artists.

Around twenty years ago, without these technologies the construction and editing stages of both our main and ancillary tasks would have been a long vigorous process.

 Evaluation

 Throughout my evaluation I attempted to use a variety of media software in order to make my work as aesthetically comfortable and visual as possible. In order to make my work as visual as possible I used photographs and screenshots where ever possible. I used Blogger to present evaluation questions 1 and 4, I used Prezi to present question 2 and I used Microsoft Powerpoint to present question 3.

I choose to use Blogger to present question 1 and 4 for a variety of reasons. I wanted to go into significant detail for both questions about my project. I felt using a small pieces of media technology such as Powerpoint would not have worked. Furthermore both Powerpoints and Prezis are meant to be visual,  consisting of lots of pictures and images rather than bulks of text.

 In an attempt to make my blog posts more visual I used photograph and print screens of my work wherever possible. However i mainly used pictures and photographs to support what I was saying. In an attempt to make both blog posts aesthetically comfortable for readers I divided bulks of texts into shorter paragraphs to make easier to read and consume.



For question two I used Prezi as I felt it required a more visual answer rather an in depth written or typed version. I choose Prezi over PowerPoint, because Prezi is more visual than PowerPoint  and looks more professional.  Furthermore I feel Prezi takes on a journey whereas PowerPoint takes through a trail of slides.

I choose to present question 2 as Prezi instead of blog, as I had less information to talk about and a more visual approach was appropreiate. For question two I needed to compare all of my productional pieces as well as other media texts in visual way with small amounts of texts to explain comparsion. I felt I needed to show the comparsion through images and pictures rather than just bulks of text heavy pages.

Within my Prezi I used another form of technology. I embed Powerpoints such as 'magazine research powerpoint' to assist my visual approach to the given question.

 

 

For question 3 I decided to use Powerpoint, Youtube and Slideshare. Like Prezi, Powerpoint is a visual way of presenting something and should mainly consist of photographs and images rather than text. Simliar to question 2, question 3 required a visual approach with comparsion of images and photographs and small chunks of texts or information.

 

I used hyperlinks throughout my presentation for things such as 'audience demographics' in attempt to again show my ideas and thoughts through images rather than words.

 

I used 'YouTube'  to annotate the various stages of development my video went through with
the peer feedback. I choose to annotate our first screening and our final screening. We received feedback on what to improve and what aspects of our video we could keep.

 

 

 

 The development of digital technology through time means it is much easier to make products without budgets. Furthermore my project shows that the boundaries of producers and consumers are merging to create the idea of prosumer.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Evaluation audience feedback from Will Humphrey

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

In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge the codes and conventions of real media products?

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

For our A2 media project we were to produce not only a music video but also CD artwork for an accompanying album and a campaign poster. All three would fit together to form a promotional package.

Costume Performance
My group and I choose to kept the sporty causal convention in regards to the costume during our performance scenes. This look is used by most artists such as Maverick Sabre and Professor Green from the indie/soul genre. Our costume also uses and develops the convention of inner city locations and a general urban feel which are two key conventions of the indie/soul genre.

I felt it was important to use this costume convention rather than to challenge it as I feel challenging would have made this convention hard to recognise within our music video .
I feel our project would be more successful, and I feel it has been, if we used existing conventions from the indie-soul genre rather than challenge them or attempt to create new ones.



Costume Narrative
Similar to our performance costume we used a sporty casual style but kept it fashionable and within our genre conventions.

 We used a Berghaus windbreaker and trainers for the sporty and urban aspects of our performance and narrative costumes. We used  printed t-shirts and jeans for the casual, laid back aspect of costume and to show some aspects of our performers personality.

We kept are costume relatively the same throughout for coherency and to ensure our narrative and the journey our performer goes on is easy to follow. We also choose to keep our costume causal, so that it was easy for our audience to relate to our performer and our realistic narrative. The ability for our audience to relate to our performer and narrative is a key convention of the indie soul genre.

Location

We chose to use and challenge the location convention of the indie and soul genre. Like the original song 'Look What I've Done To You' and other Maverick Sabre songs we chose to film in inner city locations. As we live in Bristol, a large city, so finding and choosing a location that suited our genre and video was an easy process.

We chose to film in St Pauls and Kingswood. We used the St Pauls and St Werburghs locations to film majority of our performance shots and used our school in Kingswood for all of our narrative shots. Our choice of school location ties in with our target audience who 14-18 years old, living in the Untied Kingdom. The school location provides our target audience with another chance to relate to our artist and our narrative.


 In some aspects of our location we challenged the conventional locations of the indie and soul genre. Some of our performance and narrative was shot in a park within St Wurburghs. The park and natural location is very atypical for the indie genre and but I feel as our song is very emotional and meaningful, the park location supports the lyrics more than inner city locations. I feel the park location worked well within our video and the shots and our performer did not look out of place.

Narrative

Similar to most music video narratives of all genres, we used a relationship as the basis to our narrative for our music video. I feel we created a good balance between performance and narrative during our music video. My group and I chose to base our relationship narrative on both Andrew Goodwin's theory and Todorov narrative theory.

Our video consists of our performer(me) being in a happy relationship with another group member Yvette.

  

The relationship soon begins to break down and the performer is then caught with another girl. Yvette tries to distract herself from their problems by trying hard in college.Yvette (his girlfriend) begins to look in magazines at other good looking girls and becomes self-conscious. 

Will is filmed walking around aimlessly in inner city locations and several performance shots. Will attempts to talk about their relationship but Yvette ignores him. In the end both Will and Yvette go their separate ways.

Andrew Goodwins theory 'He says that music videos are often constructed by the link between the visuals and the song plus the artist'.

In relation to Goodwins theory, we took a direct approach towards our narrative and our lyrics. We used shots (two shot- to show a relationship or connection) like the one above to show and act out the lyrics of 'Look What I've Done'. This lyric and the title of the song is an extension of Yvette catching Will with another girl .We avoided the metaphorical approach to the lyrics because this wasn't a traditional convention for the indie-soul genre.



Todorovs narrative theory

• During screenings it was commented on by both peers and teachers that our narrative was difficult to understand due to the pace and the selection of our shots.
•  After re-filming, we made the narrative shots more frequent throughout our music and made the relationship more obvious to our audience. 
• Creativity wise, we used a fast paced cutting sequence to set the scene of our conventional narrative and equilibrium (Todorov).
• We used a slow paced cutting sequence during the distribution (Yvette catching me with another girl) of our equilibrium to ensure our audience were aware of what was happening.
• We used isolated performance shots of the performer (me) to show the recognition of the disruption.
• We used a two shot to show me and Yvette arguing and me attempting to make it up to her( An attempt to repair the damage).
• Finally we referred back to fast paced cutting sequence during the distribution being resolved and a new equilibrium being created (Me and Yvette getting back together or breaking up?). 
• We used our knowledge of editing within Premier Pro and Todorov’s narrative theory to create a conventional and effective love story narrative.

The artist and performer
The indie-soul genre is predominantly made of male artists like Maverick Sabre, Plan B and Ben Howard. With this in mid, we decided to use this convention of indie genre by using Will(me) as the performer for our video.

 My group and I decided to use me as the performer, as we felt my personality and general persona suited this genre better than other genres. Furthermore our group is made up of 2 girls and 1 boy so choosing the indie genre was a fairly straight forward process.
I feel using me as a performer worked well and I was able to perform in a professional and successful manner.






Lighting
In regards to lighting, we decided to use and challenge the lighting conventions of the indie-soul genre. Most videos use artificial lighting and sometimes extra artificial lighting during shots.

We challenged this by relying heavily on natural lighting for majority of shots. We decided to use outdoor locations and natural lighting as we felt it gave our video and lyrics a more meaningful feel.

Using natural lighting meant we didn't have to spend money buying artificial lighting and we didn't have spend time setting up artificial lighting when filming.
One negative to using natural lighting meant that there were different weather conditions in each shot. To cancel this out we used a grey colour tint during the post production process.

Camera Shots and Angles 
My group and I decided to use the conventions of the indie-soul genre in regards to camera shots and angles.
During our video obeyed certain media rules or expedites such as:

• The 180 degree rule 
• Match the action (Match on action)
• Considering framing at every point during the video.

 As our video was predominantly narrative we felt it was vital to use camera shots such as shot-reverse-shot. The use of shot-reverse-shot allowed us to portray a clear connection between me(performer) and Yvette, even a relationship.

Shot-reverse-shot











On this peculiar shot it was vital that we obeyed the 180 degree rule our video would have looked amateur and slightly strange. Furthermore the connection or relationship that we trying to create would have been hard to identify with.

Establishing shot
During our music video my group and I decided to use establishing shots for their traditional purpose to set the scene of a video, film or television programme.

Similar to how Maverick Sabre uses establishing shots in the original video, we have used establishing shots of inner city locations to set the main location of our video and to create an urban feel.










 




Two shot
 Similar to how we used shot-reverse shots (conventionally), we used a variety of two shots to create and emphasise a connection or a relationship between me and Yvette. We used certain shot types to assist our target audience in understanding our narrative and video in general. For example





We used two shots conventionally to create and emphasise a relationship between me and Yvette.

 Following Yvette catching me(performer) with another girl, we used isolated mid-shots of me and Yvette separated showing the problems in the relationship- and the fact that we are no longer together.

Close up
My group and I used close ups (conventionally) during our videos to show and emphasis the emotions of our performer. During these close ups, we also used direct address in an attempt to build a personal, intimate connection with our target audience.

Here we have presented a modern representation of men, as we have presented our performer to appear emotional and sensitive.
  

Editing
 My group and I edited our music video to ensure that there was a balance between performance and narrative.

During our music video, we did not use After Effects or effects within Premier Pro regularly. I used a colour tinting effect within Premier Pro to create a grey scale effect on the inner city shots as I feel it made our video more conventional and realistic.

We used a cross dissolving effect at the end to our video to create a fluent conclusion to our narrative and music video in general. We mainly tried to avoid using effects in either Photoshop, Premier Pro or After Effects as the regular use of the effects is not conventional for indie/ soul music videos or the genre in general.

To create and present our narrative, we used a fast paced cutting sequence to set the scene of our conventional narrative (Todorov). We used a slow paced cutting sequence during the distribution (Yvette catching me with another girl) of our equilibrium to ensure our audience were aware of what was happening. Finally we referred back to fast paced cutting sequence during the distribution being resolved (Me and Yvette getting back together or breaking up?). We used our knowledge of editing within Premier Pro and Todorov’s narrative theory to create a conventional and effective love story narrative.