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

Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Copy of What kind of media insituton may distribute your media project and why? by mike tanner

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Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary texts?

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

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Poster-Complete

I feel as if i could have spent more time on my poster to create a real good bit of work and i wished to have spent more time on photo manipulation, although i needed to keep in the guidlines et by my digipak. Overall, i am happy with the final product.

New narrative storyboard : In depth

This is the new storyboard, we felt we had to redo it to get more precise results and when we'd film, we would know exactly what to film and could save time by setting up the next shot. We decided to film more than on here to allow us to variate our footage and get more angles when filming which would provide a better looking piece

Digipak, video and poster

Digipak

I feel that this final product came out really well and i'm very proud of it. Although there are probably some things i could have improved or altered, the final piece is up to a good quality and i'm happy of the progress i have developed using the software. I feel some panels are better than others but i like that there is a clear and obvious theme throughout the digipak, linking closely with the genre.

Video

The video's outcome surprised me to be honest as we had a lot of creative problems in our group and we had to start over fairly late which wasn't ideal. However, i feel that us changing our narrative idea and approach was the best decision we made and i am happy that me and my group came up with a new narrative and decided to develop it into what it is now. I also feel that it was good because of how good the quality of lip-syncing was as well as the drums. The narrative was a lot better than our original plan and was very clear of what was happening. I also like how good the depth of the video is with many different cuts and footage and filters.

Poster

The poster could have gone a lot better i feel. If i were to do it again, i would design a poster and capture exactly what i want before i go out to get photos etc. I feel that the codes and conventions are there and are used correctly but i could have manipulated the picture more. However, i am happy about the overall product and think that the 3 products i have created are of good quality.

Video- complete

This is our final video. I feel it was really good and a lot of codes and conventions were portrayed all the way through. I feel that acting on feedback, our video has got better and the clips of an 80's party fits in perfectly with the narrative.

First cut- video

This is the first cut for our entire video. We managed to edit it together fairly quickly which allowed us to get audience feedback from class mates and teachers. We decided to listen and change our video so that we could make it as good as possible. We learnt that to add further depth into the video, we should include videos from Youtube, of a party recorded on VHS and link some parts to the narrative, which i feel we did well. We also put a filter on our performance, linking to age and creating a retro feel.

Digipak-Complete

This is my final digipak piece with all the panels. I feel that, by completing this task, my Photoshop skills have developed a lot as a result of using the software to edit and design my product. The product links nicely in with the genre of music I  am representing and goes with the video and poster. The photos have been edited with a tool called 'Noise' which adds the old, grainy look to the image, tying in with the older feel of the video, with the vintage filter over all performance clips. I am happy with the way the digipak came out and pleased I used the feedback of peers to develop the images. I am also happy that i was able to change my design considerably, based on my original design and that i had enough time to alter the product. Most of all, the digipak suits the codes and conventions of the indie genre and is visibly clear that it links with the genre.

Digipak poster

The poster was the hardest Photoshop file to edit as, admittedly, i hadn't planned this at all. The though process behind the poster was a chalenge for me as i didn't want to replicate the panels of my digipak, as they would look the same. I went out to do a photo shoot with friends so that i could get photos for this as i didn't have any un used ones left, the shoot went well, although on review, none of the photos really linked with anything on my digipak. There was one photo i liked the look of which was the blurry photo below. I thought it could reprent the band to be mysterious and implicit. This didn't really work though and i decided to re think my possible design. I knew i wanted something simple that would stand out. I used a photo of the 2 visible band members from the song looing serious towards the camera, i then decided to use the rectangle to put the colour iver, a conventions used a lot in my digipak, as well as this i added noise to add a blur to the edges of the individuals. I got this far and got stuck a little as i didn't know where to put the text and symbols. I quickly figured out that the band's name and album need to be the boldest and biggest; hence me deciding to use black on white and out these texts at the top and middle of the page. I liked the box like design on the text and decided to carry it on with the other information such as release date and places to listen to it. I think this looked good as it kept the continuity and was bold. I included the same conventions as before but this time had them at 100% opacity so it was visible and clear and put a website at the bottom, something i had seen regularly when looking through previous work. I feel that i could improve this poster quite considerably and if i had used a plan it would have looked so much better. The positives is that it links in very nicely to my other products and that the codes and conventions can be seen throughout the poster.

Video feedback

From showing class mates, they gave us some advice on how the video could perhaps get better. There was a strong idea of using footage of others to help set the scene which i think would be good, as we don't have to use much but it would deepen the narrative. I'm sure going onto Youtube and searching for 80's party or VHS party, will help us. Also, some people suggested that we use a filter on the performance clips to add colour as well as change the dynamic. We don't really want to add a filter although we will add one onto the clips and see what it's like, if we like it we will keep it. We also need to shorten some clips to get the lip sncing spot on but that shouldn't take too long as it is only a handful of clips and luckily not all of them.

Digipak:Back Panel

I really enjoyed creating this panel as it was very simple yet looks good. I feel the quality of the mic and the focus on it really makes the overall panel stand out and look professional. The font is the same as the initials on the previous panels and although i wanted to use Heading, this proved difficult when making the white back ground behind the text. I had to continuously copy and paste lettering into a word document, save it then create a new file in Photoshop. This would then mean i had to open up the file, crop the text down to size and make a rectangle behind every bit of text. This may have looked better had i done it but i wanted the text to look the same and equal. If i had done the first way, there would be a lot of rectangles that i would have had to put directly together and may have got confused. Although i didn't use Heading, i did use the same font which has been occurring throughout the digipak so it does link in. I only lightly edited the photo as i wanted to keep the image the same as it was crisp and shows a lot of detail, i thought using any noise on the image would make the image look bad as a majority of the image is already blurry as when taking it i focused the lens on the mic so that the background would go blurry. With the codes and conventions(studio logo, record label and bar-code) i wanted a washed out look to ease the intensity, as throughout the complete product, the colors used have been tampered to give it a softer feel; done by changing the opacity. Originally i had changed the opacity of all the conventions to around 70%, allowing some of the actual image to come through. This looked really good in my opinion on the record label and studio logo but the bar-code looked overly washed and almost invisible as the background behind the bar-code is lighter. After asking friends on what i should improve, they told me to keep the bar-code at 100% but everything else looks professional and of good quality. The other manipulation was of the white background behind the text. Originally, i used the rectangle tool and created a large white square and put it behind all the text, leaving black text on a pure white background. I didn't want the text to intrude on the left hand side of the page so i had to reduce the text size a little. I then used a magic eraser to cut away at the white rectangle, leaving the step like look. This made the panel look better as there wasn't a white block taking up over half the space. Where some song names got small like 505, i zoomed in and held shift whilst removing the white. Holding shift whilst removing things in this way allows a straight line to form which is a good technique i found out and it saved me a lot of time. Overall, from completing my digipak, i have learnt and developed key and basic skills to do with Photoshop and have incorporated genre codes and conventions to my product, as well as challenging them on occasions.

Digipak:Fourth Panel

The panel designed for the CD was the last panel i did. I left this to last because i knew it would take longer than the rest and i wanted to complete the other 5 panels. This took longer because of the layers. In total i had over 10 layers and it was complicated because of the rectangles and different fonts. I had to get a template from google for a CD and crop it down to fit the page. This was harder than anticipated because i had to make the curves near enough the same distance away from each side. This would have been easy but the guidelines to help we weren't there for some reason and so i had to use guess work to do it. It also took longer because i essentially had to edit 2 photos in the panel as i put a background behind it. I used the background of a tree to vary the image. Looking at some CD panels, the background is white or black but in my case, it wouldn't work as it doesn't fit the conventions. Furthermore, time was taken for me to figure out the mask clipping as it changes when there are 2 images and i changed every layer around 2 times each, making a mess. I finally found out where the mask clip should go and had the performance image in the CD with the tree behind it. For the background this time, i used noise but didn't include any texture, as i felt it would look different as the background wasn't a solid colour. The actual template for the CD was a PS4 template so when it had first been placed on the panel, all the PlayStation branding was on it. This proved hard to remove because whenever putting a rectangle over it, the rectangle would move the images around and the image of the band would completely go. I figured that using the magic eraser tool would get rid of it and all i needed to do was put a white background fill in. I then changed both images to black and white before putting a purple filled rectangle in front of the tree. I wanted to keep the main image black and white so that i could use black and hite text and boxes to write the band and album name. Overall, i feel that the panel is weak in terms of editing and i could perhaps of made it better. I feel that if the image was bigger, i would be able to drag it down more and the the white part a the bottom would be reduced.

Digipak:Third Panel

The third panel is my least liked panel out of the 6. I feel that the picture used is inappropriate for the lettering and the image's right hand side doesn't look great. The only reason i used the image was because for all the panels with initials on, i wanted band members. One with the drummer, one with the singer and one with both of them. When taking the image, i was not planning on using it like this so i couldn't see any dilemmas with it. The reason i didn't re shoot was because when i realised that this photo was the only real one i could use, it was too late and the actors were busy with school work so i couldn't re shoot. However, i do feel that it inst actually that bad and it still looks OK. Although, if i were to change the photo, i would get a photo of them with their back turned  and on an angle so that neither of their bodies would be overly cut out. For the other mise en scene on the panel, i have still got the same textures, although i moved them so it would look different than the other panels and i used a light red/brown to change the colour. I still used noise and i think the initial image turned out well, just not so much inside the C.

Digipak:Second Panel

The second panel is my second favourite panel. The panel is exactly the same as the first but has different lettering, photo and colour. However, the same techniques were used. When thinking about the design of my new digipak, i wanted different colours so that it wouldn't necessarily look the same on every panel. Also, i wanted more photos to use, such as different angled shots and independent performers. The photo used on the second panel is really good. I was not planning on using the photo originally and i had taken it when i was planning on doing the original concept. When looking through the photos when i had changed my idea, i knew i could still use it. Not many people have the same type as photo as me so it looks unique. I took it on the floor looking up at the singer and i thought it looked good. The K lettering also enabled me to use the photo because of the thick, bold lines which i could put the photo into. I used the same tools to do this panel although i used less noise, as i wanted the picture to be clearer to the eye. By using the same techniques, i got a better understanding of where the tools were and what did what when editing. The lettering was annoying though as i had to shrink and re size the letter numerous times because it was either too thick or tall.

Digipak:First Panel

The first panel was changed as i originally wanted a Mura Masa style digipak. However, I could not make this look good and although the pictures looked good, there was too much space with nothing in. I intended on using lyrics of the chosen songs in the background, giving the panel a multi modal purpose;to read lyrics associated with the album and photos. However, as I hadn't planned this, i could not put my ideas into concepts. I spoke to a few friends asking them for advice and one person told me to use one photo per panel and edit that. I then came up with the idea of using the initials of the band to represent my photos. As i needed 3 panels and there are 3 initials it worked perfectly and i decided to put the image in the letter and use the textures in the background. As for me, this is a complex editing technique, i asked friends who are more experienced in Photoshop to help me. I quickly learnt that to get images into shapes, you need to create a clipping mask. This, essentially, enables images to go into shapes and literally cut the photo around the shape. It is terrifically easy to use/ create; you put the image you want in the shape over the shape, go to layers and right click in between the layers and it allows you to access the tool. It then puts the image in the shape and you can move it around to suit you. Although i intended on using the Heading font for all text, i was limited in terms of fonts as i was unable to find the font on Photoshop. I had to think of a way to keep the font i wanted but also incorporate it into the initials. I also had a problem with fonts as a lot of fonts were skinny and when mask clipping the image into it, it made the mage look bad and wasn't easily visible. I searched for around 20 minutes to find a font which was chunky, to allow the majority of the image to fit as well as one that suited the genre. This proved difficult although i finally found one called Rockwell Bold. It looked good and suited the genre. I edited the photo too, using noise at 6% making a slight grain, a look i wanted from the beginning. I also turned the image black and white, before using the rectangle tool to put an overall colour to it. I went for light colours all along and changed the opacity to create a archaic look and feel. This is further backed up by the textures used. These were simple paper PNG's off of Google. I am happy with the final design and i think it has a professional look to it, I'm so happy i changed the idea and used this as in hindsight, the previous design looked terrible and didn't really match the genre.

Digipak:Front cover

The front cover was not how I intended. My intended design was meant to look much different with the main photo being a man with his leg in the air(looking like he's about to step down, whilst walking). When taking this photo, I encountered a few problems. The photo in general didn't look good because the main part of the photo was the actors foot, although it looked good when i planned it, it didn't look good when taking it. The lighting was also an issue. The flash on the camera projected a shadow on the ceiling and the flash caused his trousers to be brightly lit but the rest of his body normal. The ripples in his shirt also makes the photo look unprofessional and bad. When in the studio, I had a few ideas of photos which could make the front cover instead. I wanted both drummer and singer to feature in the front cover, although when planning, I didn't think we were going to use a drummer. I felt the singer needed to take up more space on the cover as he was the main person in the video so i decided to get a shot of the singer, taking up the right hand side of the image in a close up shot with the drummer near his right shoulder in the background. I feel the image was better than the original idea because it introduces both members and the actual photo looks professional and appropriate in terms of the codes and conventions of the genre.

The actual photo used

Original idea for front panel

For the actual edited photo, I originally wanted a Mura Masa style to the digipak although this turned out unsuccessful. However, I felt that the front cover could still adopt this style, even if the other panels didn't. The front cover helped boost my Photoshop skills and develop on the skills i already had. I initially wanted the name of the band to be located at the top left, above the image with the image focused more on the right hand side and not centered. The name of album would then be near the bottom right. This design almost gave the panel a stair look with the words and photo continuously going down the screen. However, after feedback, I decided to change the layout as it didn't look too good. Instead I centered it all and this simple alteration made the panel look much better. The background of the panel is a faint yellow with a paper-like texture, giving it a more retro/grainy feel which I wanted throughout the entire digipak.

Final piece

Editing our new narrative 8th-12th

This week was the last week we were able to edit our video as it was due in on the 15th. At the start of the week, we proceeded with what we had already got and continued to edit. As we knew time was running out and it was going to be a tight affair nearer the end of the week, we worked hard and sacrificed time in our day to edit. As the week progressed, we developed the narrative and performance and put more depth into the video, with cutaways and jump cuts etc. We worked on the video in every media lesson we had in the week and me and my other group members devoted our time at breaks, lunches and sometimes after school to get it done. By Thursday, we had finished and allowed class members and our teacher to watch it, insisting they gave us feedback on how to make it better. The feedback was varied and different people liked different things but the most constructive criticisms came from our friends in the class, who were honest. The said to include parts of already made videos and incorporate them into our video. When speaking to the teacher, he said we were allowed 30 seconds of other video to put into ours. This worked well and we found VHS camera footage from the late 80's, fitting the theme of the video well. It added more footage, which we didn't really need but kept the flow of the video and tempo high. We included the clips where we were told the video was too long and including this footage shortened the clips. We were also told to put a filter over the performance aspect to vary the color of the overall video. We looked through the filters on iMovie and picked the 'Vintage' one. It added an orange tinge to the footage and developed the codes and conventions of the genre. The feedback we received helped us make the video better and i feel it is the best it can be.

Digipak Feedback

I originally started with the front cover and the first couple of panels on Photoshop.  I started with a Mura Masa style theme which looked good, in my opinion. The front cover consists of the name of the band and name of album as well as a photo of the 2 band members which were seen in the music video. Learning Photoshop was really intriguing and although I had used Photoshop before, this time was harder and required more complex editing. To suit the genre of  music, I needed to create a front cover that looked indie. I personally think it looked good but i asked my friends what I could improve and they said to add color to it. This again boosted my confidence of Photoshop and enabled me to use other techniques to add color and tone and I used the rectangle tool to drag a square over my work, I then had to change the opacity so that it would be colored but not overly colored. In the end, I made the color fainter to add depth to the image and also made it have a sort of retro look. Behind the colored square I added 2 paper-like textures to give the background a kind of texture as opposed to being blank, this was again recommended to me by my friend and I think it made the images look more professional and made the overall image more suitable for the intended genre. I continued to use this texture in the rest of the panels, although changing the size and direction of them to look uniquely different in each picture.

I also continued to use the Mura Masa style, by putting 2 images of each screen, cross linking them and putting a rectangle over them to add color. The images looked good and I put a purple colour over them which was on a faint yellow background. This looked good although, to fit the Mura Masa style, I put the images into one corner of the page, leaving a lot of space. This space was to be filled by lyrics of the songs i was going to have on my back panel although when writing the lyrics, it looked bad and I didn't want to copy exactly Masa's style. I planned on putting a lot of lyrics on the page that would go behind one photo and over the other, as well as having text go down the side of pictures. However, as I hadn't used text on Photoshop before, i didn't know that there was a horizontal text button;which enables you to write text down the page with sufficient gaps between each letter. Instead, I wrote normally but made the text bar small and narrow and pressed enter after each letter. Not only was this technique slow but it also made the letters look spaced out and took up a lot of room. On the 2nd panel, I realized this tool existed but decided to change my idea after friends told me it looked bad.

I only got up to the 3rd panel when i changed my idea. I didn't think it looked as good as I wanted and didn't want to waste any more time on it if I weren't to use it. I changed my idea and with little help from someone who is experienced with Photoshop, i managed to alter my panels.

Potential digipak/poster photoshoot

Tonight i went out with my friend and brother to get some potential photos for my digipak or poster. Here are a few shots which will make the final edit if i need them.

Editing our new narrative 3rd-5th Jan

This week, after the holiday break, we came in with our new narrative footage which we intended to edit. On Wednesday 3rd, we uploaded all the footage and started to put it together and organise the files on iMovie. We had to delete all the footage on there already because of our new footage. We did this fairly efficiently and we had 2 hours to edit. By the time we had sorted everything out and started to bring the new footage in, we only had about an hour left. In this hour, we started putting the early clips in, sieving through all the footage and editing them down. We had filmed some things after they happen in the video, which was annoying because we had to keep going up and down on the footage in the top left. As there's 3 of us in the group we all want different things. This can be frustrating because if i edit something, the other 2 may not like it and they will change it, although, as we have filmed it, we discussed how we want to edit the majority of the video so it should be okay with hardly any arguments. As we have used iMovie before, it was easy to get back into the editing and everyone is comfortable using it. On Thursday and Friday, we just continued to edit everything together. One thing we struggled to do was to edit all the clips together and make them shorter; in a music video, it is ideal to have shots of no longer than 4 seconds so the video is nicely paced. Our shots are quite long so we have had o edit what we have got up to with a lot of  jumpcuts, which suit the codes and conventions. However, wit this means we are struggling to get the lip syncing spot on with the actor.

Filming new narrative- Saturday 29th December

On the evening of saturday, we started filming. We filmed the whole narrative last night as it would be easier than doing bits and then having to come back with the same things in the same place around the house. The filming went well and my mum took it seriously which were the intended results. We changed the story board up a little however due to changed we wanted to make there and then, whilst filming.

I feel it did go really well because we had no background interference and although my mum has never done any filming before, she knew what to do i terms of continuity like where to go and the exact movements for editing techniques such as match on action. As well as that, we had most of the night to film in, meaning we could do more shots and re do shots if needed. This was good because my mum was not in a rush to do things which made her calmer in front of the camera and gave it a more realistic image.
However, there were a few things we could improve upon. For instance, the rooms we filmed in were messy and the rooms;especially upstairs, were small and cramped. This was a drawback as we could not film a lot of different angles which we wanted to do. Although i do believe we have enough angles and movements. Thinking back, i feel we could have perhaps dragged some shots/scenes out to get more footage but with the performance aspect of the video as well, i think it should be fine.

Update on new narrative

When filming our new narrative, we came to the conclusion that it would be easier to film it if the protagonist, Cath, would come home from shopping. We will then have Cath look at a reminder of her school reunion which will be in the kitchen. She will be surprised as she forgot that the reunion was on the day she's on. She then goes upstairs and picks out clothes, before ironing them to make them look nice and tidy. Once ironing the dress and getting her shoes and purse together, she proceeds to her bathroom, where she puts the dress on and puts a series of make-ups on. The ending will show her walking out the front door. This narrative, we think, is easier to film compared to an 80's style reunion, as my mum doesn't own any 80's style clothing.