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

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

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

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

Evaluation- What I have learnt from my audience feedback

In order to gain feedback on my media products I created a questionnaire on SurveyMonkey, with questions geared towards gaining both qualitative and quantitative data. By doing this, I hoped to gather the best information I would, with answers having numeral data and written data. Having quantitative date and qualitative data meant I could gather information which was written and explained the reasons for what the audience thought, as well as just what they thought.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FP9CZ36

Audience Feedback Analysis by

I also apologize for the fact that the entire page is on the PowerPoint; it was not when I uploaded it to Scribd, but now it has added these.

Final Homepage

Final Digipack Design

Homepage finalising

Now the video is finished and up on YouTube I've added the video into the YouTube widget on my homepage. I now know that I need to tweak the size and positioning of the widget, as the size means that the video is hard to see, and looks awkward. I'm also really not sure what to think of the blue, as I don't think it works.







I changed the background from blue to white, and I think this looks better. I've also removed the dodgy brown background from the logo, made it white, and made it a bit bigger. I've moved the writing a bit, and the widget, but it now looks oddly crowded, so I need to revise that a bit.











I moved them around a bit more. I changed the side that the widget was on, and put one half of the text next to it, and the other under the video. I'm still not satisfied with this, as it looks really un-organised, and really unprofessional. I also added some social networking links, which would link to the bands Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube.












I went and added a picture of the band to the webpage, underneath the text, and this structure made it look much better. The picture was taken when we recorded, and I added this because it had the same costumes as in the video, and same effect as the images on the video, and drew a link between the three products.










I changed the sides of the image and widget, with the text moved too. I'm still not sure on this, so I'm going to keep looking at it.

I thought about what some of the other websites had, and realised they had a twitter feed on their websites, so I added one to my page. Next to it, there is the picture of the whole band, and angled underneath is the video. I've moved the text a bit, but the way it is makes the page look too text heavy. I also added a link to the iTunes page with the social networks, as a lot of bands would have this so people could directly download their music.

I then moved the twitter feed to the other side, and placed pictures where this were. These images are the ones which were on the digipack, so I thought it would be good to link them together. I then put the video up a bit higher, and gave the text/video/photo the same format as before, I then changed the text to a dark brown, to link it to the sepia used on the pictures. 

The Finished Video

More work on the Homepage

Homepage by TheEmergancyWard

Editing- 12th/13th February

12th February- We started off by watching the video so we knew what we had of it, and what we needed to do. A problem we have is that there are still a few places where footage is needed as they are just gaps right now, and not even the sort of gap which could we used as an effective part of the video . As this wasn't a huge problem, we just went through the footage and looked for pieces which were good and would fit. We managed this quite quickly, and moved on to looking at effects. The main effect we looked at was overlaying the clips, and to do this we used the opacity option under clip motion.

13th February- Now all of the footage is in and synced up, we're on to adding effects. We need to add these effects in order to give the video a more professional feel, as at the moment it looks quite mediocre right now. Right now we're planning on looking at the effect of colour correction, sepia tone, and opacity. Sepia tone is one which is important, as both of us have used Sepia tone within our album covers, and realistically need this within our video to create synergy. 

We started trying to use sepia tone, but at current it doesn't look as though it will work because of the lighting on the performance element being too dark, and it doesn't work on the narrative as it takes everything away from the footage. As a result, we've decided not to use sepia tone, but hopefully this will not take away from the homepage and digipack. 

We also made a band identity to go on the beginning and end of the video, which has the artist, album and song on it. Because of the constraints of the program used (LiveType) we could not change the colour of this from blue to brown, so it would be similar to sepia tone, like we planned as a way of creating synergy. Although we're disappointed we couldn't give this the same branding as our other products, it at least looks professional, which is agreeably better than having a very amateur one in the right colour. 

Over Coming Editing Problem

Here is Andrew, who I edited with, talking about a problem which we enountered during editing, and how we fixed it.

More work on the homepage

I began this time with the incredibly strenuous task of cutting the logo from the front cover using Gimp, and then erasing the edges and around the words. After this, I tried in vain to copy the image into iWeb, only for it to fail every time, and I had to save it and add it that way. I then had to edit it using a mask to hide the background which I had saved with it. 

I then clearly changed the set out of the page, and am in the process of changing the set out still. I've added the logo to the top above the writing, and ideally would have made that the same colour as the other boxes, but it would not let me, so I am considering changing the background colour to white, but not yet. I've also added the album cover to the page, with a little piece telling consumers when the album is due to be released. The other boxes are to have the Youtube link and and links to their social media sites on them, so will need to be changed in shape and size. 

Here's the current version of the page. I've made the logo larger, and shrunk the box which had the new album advertisement in it. This box links directly into the news box, though this could be changed depending on how I feel about it when I look at it next, as at the moment, I'm not sure about it. The boxes seem a little off, as instead of containing and separating everything, they seem to be messy and in the way. 

Finished Digipack Design

This is the finished digipack. There are three images of the band, and three which have been drawn and inked, so there is an equal part of each. To add to synergy, I've given them all an edit which gives them the appearance of being weaved, and gives way to the old fashioned look which I aimed for using sepia tone, which there is also an element of in each. The sepia tone is also synergistic with the sepia tone that will most likely be used in the video. The images link with this too. There are tree's near the opening of the video, albeit they do not look like that, and the girl on the front cover is an art nouveau version of the girl within the video. The house and hill are reference to the 'mansion on top of a hill' mentioned on the song. The bird with 'Lift Off' written on the wings is clearly the bands logo. I am going to cut the logo out so that it can be used on my homepage. 

The Homepage

After last weeks editing of the website, I'm honestly at a bit of a loss as of what I should do to it now. I've stopped looking at the other pages, as I only need the hompage, and by looking at the other pages I am wasting time which could be used on this page. 

This is what I have of the homepage so far. It looks quite plain, so I am re-consulting the pages I looked at during research to see what they have on their homepages. These all had more plain backgrounds, or ones with no texture, so I changed my background to be plain black, which I actually much prefer.  

The Bob Dylan website has a homepahe which is full of news, with the option to change the page of the site on the side. I already have this bar, though mine is along the top, though I do think it looks better at the side, but iWeb doesn't allow for it to be anywhere but the top. 

 The Alberta Cross homepage has a piece advertising their new album along the top, which could be a good idea as it takes up more space, and means the album is in clear view from the start, and any advertising is done as soon as someone goes on the site, without having to look for it. It also has news all down the hompage, meaning the consumers are automatically updated. 

The Delain homepage has the bands latest news, the new video, the bands Twitter embedded, links to their social networking sites, and the next show that is coming up.

These pages can be seen elsewhere in my blog. Baring these in mind, I went back to my homepage to add these things. 

So, I've now changed the format a little bit, but I now feel it over overpowered by text, so I need to think how to change this, and maybe add images so it doesn't look so plain. It might be a good idea to replace the 'Homepage' with my logo, and I now actually prefer the other background I edited for it. I also think the black background looks much better, as its plainer, flatter and means the font stands out more.

Editing- 23/01/13

Today we started editing our sequence together into the music video. We decided to start with purely getting the beginning in order and looking right, and that we would make any stylistic changes later. Quite early into editing, we found we had problems with the track, as when we put in a clip, it changed where our track was, meaning the video was our of sync, which before hand it had not been. This caused problems as we had already added in a few shots of the performance element, before adding in the narrative, which opened the video. In order to combat this problem before it ruined and undid all the  work on syncing we had already done, we locked the audio-track, so that no matter how many clips we add, there will be no disruption to the track.















We had a few much smaller problems with sequencing, as we kept getting things jump ans cut, which didn't look right. In order to overcome this, we looked at separating the shots using smaller shots. This was normally used to separate parts of the narrative using the performance shots, as will be seen in the finished video. We also did this when we felt a shot was too long or with too high an ASD. 

More work on iWeb

I decided that I wanted my website to look more professional, and so went and looked at a few free wallpaper stocks which I could add to my site. I found these two, which are currently quite girly, but with some work could look much better, and much more synergistic with a little more editing. 

I rotated the image, then fixed the exposure so the image is slightly darker, and then made the image slightly sharper, so it looks more textured. I then added a small amount of Sepia to the image, as a lot of my images use sepia tone. This makes the image more synergistic and means that it looks less feminine, which was a problem with the stock image. 

I then did the same to the next image, which made it darker and more synergistic. 

I then got on to using these on my webpages. 

I started by adding it as a background to my titles of each page. This actually works well, as although the image has a different colour, the textures of the two are very similar, and look a bit like they have been weaved. I've done this on every page. I then decided to change the fonts on each page. I made this a font called 'Dutch and Harley' which was free on dafont.com. Now I need to make some decisions regarding the layout of these, as they all have white lines surrounding them where they have been carried over, and in some cased this looks messy, as the lines do not always add up, and the fonts are of different sizes. I've also decided to do no more work on the other pages, as it's more important that the homepage is done, especially as the other pages aren't needed.

Filming- 15/01/13

We have now completely finished filming. Yesterday we got our group and band together to do the performance element of our video. We started off just experimenting with the lights in the room we were using, and making sure we had enough lighting and a consistent setting to film in. We then got to work filming. We organised our band so they were in the best possible places, and began to film, however we had a problem with our original guitarist, as he was not a convincing guitarist at all, but were lucky enough to have another person on hand who took over the post. After that, filming went quite smoothly, and we got a lot of takes done and completed filming fairly quickly. We worked together well, taking it in turns to do filming and technical work, such as turning on music and controlling lighting, and made sure to discuss things and take others opinions into account. 

More Digipack Work

I now have the other two photographs I planned to use  and edit. I am planning to edit them in a similar way to the first one I edited. I also have the drawn images prepared, and one inked already, which will be used on my digipack, as three images are photo's and three are painted. 

Digipack Design

Media Image Edit- Silver James by TheEmergancyWard

Webpage Creation (continued)

Here is more of the work I have done on the creation of the webpage with iWeb. I have began to change the way the pages look, add information, and make changes to formatting to make the pages more consistent.

The first page I added more onto was the 'Homepage'. I began by looking at different hand-written looking fonts to see which I thought would be the best for the headings of each page, and eventually went for 'Handwriting- Dakota'. I copied the text box containing the writing, which I made light grey to match the scheme of greys on the webpage, and pasted it in as the heading. This left me with a white box around the font which I wasn't expecting, but I liked it, so I kept it and kept it on each page after this. I also changed the image to a 'YouTube' widget, which once the music video is done and uploaded will show that. I now need to work on other parts of what the homepage will contain.

I then went on to the 'Latest News' page. I added the title of the page onto the top of the page, but decided to make the ones on this and the other pages smaller, but keep the box, and keep the width of the box the same on each. I then started writing a mock post form the band, which is talking about their new album, video, merchandise and tour dates. I will likely include some images, such as a mock up of a piece of merchandise or of the CD cover or band during recording at a later date. 

I then took a look at the 'Music' Section. This part will be tricky, because I will need to find a way to indicate that the 'Music' Videos', 'Song Lyrics' and 'Music Sheets' would be subsections and would have a drop box and link from them to each thing. So far I just have them written out, and have added a 'YouTube' widget to have the new music video shown as a way of advertising and synergy. Asides from this, this page is incredibly bare, so I plan to do a little more research to see how other bands websites set out this page.

I then looked at the 'Tour Dates' section of the site. I added the same font/box as before, and then went on to add the dates of the shows, which I made up based around when this part of the coursework will be completed by. I then went and looked a few less known bands and where they would perform, and used these locations as where the band would perform on their tour. I also added  a 'link' to the shop from this page, so consumers could link straight to the section of the shop where tickets are available, to add convenience for them. 

Quick Update: 08/01/13

After the christmas break, we're back and preparing for editing. As a group we have spoken about things we need to do before we can film. We have already filmed our narrative, so that is no longer an issue, and now we have to re-film our performance. The reason for this is that the footage we got was of a poor quality, and we lacked a drum element. In order to combat this problem when we re-film, which will be on the 15th of this month (one week form now) we have come up with several ways to combat this problem. As our school music department will not allow us to use a drum kit and we cannot  seem to find one which we can use we have decided that we will either have an electric drum kit, which we think a friend of ours may be able to lend us, or use instruments from the game 'Rockband'.