Evaluation Question 1

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlUDGPx2BSk&t=1s

Script for the video

My media product Follows the style of our chosen artist, David Bowie (In his later years) most noticeably from his work in Lazarus. We do this by using surreal imagery and connotations to keep with the same surreal themes as his video, Lazarus, which touched on the subject of death with its unique imagery. While our video wasn't a perfect representation of Bowie's style, we believe that we managed to pull off something close despite the low budget and less experience in editing and filming.

One way our video differs from usual music video conventions is by using a low quality in certain segments of the video, one noticeably being the VHS segment where I used stop motion with a VHS effect placed in the foreground. This is different from most music videos which use a HD quality throughout their entire video.

Our video also conforms to the Enigma Code Theory, by Roland Barthes, where the details of the narrative or messages are not clearly conveyed to the audience and leaves viewers to speculate and theorise their own connotations and message.

For example one segment of our music video features me and David repeating the same actions in different shots, for instance this crab shot. We also use special effects to place a low quality shot of me in Davids place, using green screen.

 I feel this suits media since it is a good way to bring communities or viewers together and makes them a part of the project as much as the developers.

However our video goes against typical conventions of other music videos by intentionally using a low video quality to add to the surreal theme we wanted to create. 

Overall I feel as though our video both conforms and goes against codes and conventions since the video links to the Enigma Code theory, which has been massively popularized in modern media and follows similar themes from a famous artist. The low quality could however be seen as intentional or just a lack of effort which isn't what we intended while creating the video.

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the correlation between your main product and Ancillary texts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9SxMnVeIvI&feature=youtu.be

For this question I decided to use a Green screen presentation. We had used Green screen for our Evaluation last year. I felt that using green screen is a decent way to show the viewers what I am describing in my answer and show how I can use my editing skills for my Evaluation. 

I used Sony Vegas to edit the Video and used my Phone camera to film. Editing the video was easy and quick, I was able to Film in One hour and Edit and Render the video the next hour. This shows how my skills in using this software have improved since filming my Music Video. 

Script for Green screen Video
The correlation Between my Main product and Ancillary texts is effective because I took inspiration from a key segment of my main product while creating my Digipack and Poster designs.

The theme correlating throughout my Ancillary texts is based towards this segment of my music video, which I like to call the VHS segment. As you can see the shot suits our chosen themes. This grainy, VHS style is a reoccurring theme throughout the video.

This is my Poster design, as you can see I wanted to use the same distorted Video style as the video. So I took a blank VHS background image and used that for the background. I inverted the colours of our logo and text to suit the distorted colour scheme I wanted.

This is my Digipack, as you can already see I used the same images as the poster to keep with the same themes and to link the two together,

which I believe makes them look more professional. I used Photoshop to make these images and  editied them in a way to keep with the same surreal, uncanny valley imagery as my music video. 


Overall I feel as if the correlation between my Video and Ancillary texts are effective. And I'm happy with the end result.

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Prezi Document

https://prezi.com/p/dmeintadr16h/

For this Evaluation question I wrote out my answer and created a Prezi document online which explained my actions based off of audience feedback, my changes from my first presentation to my last and some examples of both the positives and negatives of my music video.

I chose to do a Prezi document because it was an easy way to lay out information which is easy to navigate. This allows the reader to feel more involved in the question since my presentation follows the same themes as my video and Digipack/Poster with the VHS background and text.

Evaluation Question 4

How did you use Media Technologies in the Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation stages?

Construction 

For my Construction stages I used different Media Technologies while creating my main product (music video)

To Film our music video I used my IPhone camera. The camera gave us shots with a good video quality and was portable since it fit easily in my pocket, this allowed me to film without having to carry around expensive equipment or borrow a decent video camera off of someone. To get shots, that needed to be perfectly still, for example our Green Screen/ Mirror segment. I used a small tripod, for a completely different camera, and tied my phone to the tripod with two hair bobbles.

For editing my Video I used a number of platforms. I used Adobe Photoshop for creating stills for our video. In one segment in particular, the VHS segment. My original intention was to create Threshold images and sync them up with the lyrics of the video to crate a stop motion animation. However the Threshold didn't look as good as I wanted it to look. So I looked for something to replace this. I then thought of using distorted VHS effects for the shot. I took images of video distortion and edited them in Photoshop to look like straight lines of distortion. This looked way better than my original plan so I decided to use this instead. 

I also used Photoshop to create a Poster and DigiPack for our music group.

For our poster I wanted to use the same themes as my video so I chose the themes of my VHS segment. I used a blank VHS background, with the play and time codes, usually found on home video cameras. I used the Logo and Title, designed by David on Photoshop, and Inverted the colours using the Invert tool. This followed the distorted theme I wanted. 

For my Digipack I used the same images as my poster, I did this to keep with the same themes as my other Ancillary texts. I got a basic template for a Digipack and used this to place my images which I designed in Photoshop. I edited one image, one of me and David, and removed our faces to keep with the surreal theme of my Video, using the Spot Healing Tool. I also used a Threshold image, of me, which I intended to use for my music video but felt that it didn't look good enough in the end. However I felt as if it suited my Digipack so I eventually found a use for this image.

To put the Video together I used Sony Vegas. with this software I was able to put together our shots, audio and create special effects for our video.

For our VHS segment I placed the stills into Sony Vegas and synced them up with the lyrics of the song. I then placed a moving image of my distortion effect in front of the stills. I then used the Add Noise tool to give the shots a fuzzy, low quality, video effect.

For our video we also used green screen in certain parts. One use of green screen was for our Mirror shot where me and David stood in front of a mirror then covered the mirror in green fabric. Then we edited the shots with the Chroma Keyer tool. Using the Layers of the video we were able to place the two shots together and ended with a shot that looked as though I was Davids reflection. We did have to re take this shot using a tripod and different mirror but the editing process was still the same.

Research

For my research I used different Media Technologies to receive information on how we could create our main product.

YouTube was a platform which we found useful in our research. On YouTube I could look at different styles of music videos from our chosen artist, David Bowie. As well as different music videos with similar styles and themes as what we wanted to convey in our music video.

Using YouTube we were also able to find different video tutorials on how to create the different effects we wanted in our video. Using YouTube videos we could pause and replay the video to follow each step and get used to the editing software. This is how I am now able to make Green Screen videos a lot easier than I could starting this project.

Google Images was useful to my research because I could look at different shots or images to get inspiration and ideas as to what I wanted to create in my music video. The VHS effect I used was an idea given to me looking at images of distorted images on Google. It was also useful for looking at images of key moments in other music videos with similar themes.

Blogger was one of the main platforms we used for our A level, we use blogger to upload our coursework but it was also a reliable source or research. We were linked to a MasterBlog, made by Ms McDonald Holmes, were she would upload work made by previous students, which I would look at to see what I could create using the software's available for us. She would also upload links to tutorials on how to use the editing software provided to us on the blog.

http://a2-chchs-media-17-18.blogspot.co.uk

Wikipedia was a handy source of basic information. While not reliable as a detailed source of information it is useful for receiving the basics. For example the release dates of certain albums as well as basic info on our chosen artist, David Bowie, such as his birthday and the date of his death

Planning

Microsoft Word was a useful tool for creating planning sheets for me and David. One example was the Lyric List that we created. In this list we copied the lyrics of the song, The Man Who Sold The World, and placed boxes next to each section. In these boxes we took notes of what shots we wanted to use for certain lyrics. This was an effective way to keep track of what we were planning, what we had shot and what we needed to shoot in the future. As we finalized our video our Lyric Sheet progressively filled out, showing our development over time.

IMessage is what we used to keep in contact with one another. IMessage allows you to use the internet to send messages to each other, this is how we were able to send screenshots of certain shots or information, such as weather forecasts etc. This helped us keep in contact with each other during our planning stages. We also used Facetime a couple times to show each other what we have planned, in our own time, and make plans for our lessons in school.

Blogger was also handy for our planning stages. Mrs McDonald Holmes updated the MasterBlog frequently with information and kept giving us deadlines for our planning evidence. Keeping us busy with coursework which doubled as planning or research helped ensure that we didn't waste time.

Evaluation

For my evaluation stages I used a number of different media technologies to create my evaluation.

I used Adobe Photoshop to create any images or to save screenshots for my evaluation.

I used a Green screen to film one of my evaluation questions and then edited the video in Sony Vegas.

 

Another technology I used was Prezi to create an online presentation that was intractable. This makes the viewer feel more engaged with the presentation. It was also easy to use however its simplicity makes the document seem unprofessional, in my opinion.