Evaluation task 1:

Evaluation task 1 from bertieclarke231

The Gifs do not work because they are in a powerpoint

Evaluation task 2: How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary products?

Evaluation task 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback

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

Presenting ideas using media technologies

To present our ideas to the class i have used a mixture of different technological websites on the internet including Blogger, Prezzi and Powerpoint. The reason behind this is because we found it much easier to show images to our class and the people we were showing the products to and a visual description of the products showed a much more of what we wanted them to see compared to trying to tell them about the products, these websites and softwares helped us to present our ideas visually, through videos, pictures and sound. We used the technological websites to mainly present our ideas to focus groups and to the class. Like i said the use of these websites made it much easier for us to present as it let us show our thoughts visually.

Presenting ideas to the class was useful because it meant that we got to cut down the to our best ideas and could forget about the other ones which let us to focus more on individual ideas.

Test video using media technologies

When making the test shoot for our ideas we used media technologies to help us. We used an IPhone and IMovie to help make the video. Using the IPhone and IMovie helped us to see what are finished item was going to look like. This was important for us at an early stage because if it was going to look unprofessional we could change it before it was too late, rather than doing the final piece and then realising it was too late, if the cast were not good on camera as well we would be able to change them and rehears other cast in time for the final shoot. In our group we definitely used test shoots effectively as we changed our ideas a lot due to several reasons including not liking the idea after seeing it and also realising that the idea was unrealistic.

There were a few things that changed from the test shoots to the actual real thing. The security guard scene that we used in the test shoot wasn't used in the real video because we felt it wasn't needed. We also chose to re arrange the formation of which the band perform in, before we had the singer at the back but we chose to put the singer at the front because he was the most significant in the video and we wanted to show this by putting him at the front.

Communicating using media technologies

We used media technologies such as email and Facebook to contact the band to remind them about rehearsals and the date of the shoot. This didn't work very well as our band were students at our school, and generally students don't look at their email. This is one of the only exceptions where media technologies didn't help us in the construction and research of the products. Instead we just told them face to face about rehearsals, and this worked much better.

Filming using media technologies

Using a Sony FS100 for the main shots of the music video gave a great advantage to us making the video. This is because the camera made our shots look more professional. For the close up shots we were fortunate enough to be able to use a 85mm lens, this creates a shallow depth of field which gives a traditional classic look, this fits in with the traditional look of the classic rock genre and makes it look epic. The shallow depth of field creating a traditional classic look of a rock band also ties is well with the costume of the
band, black ripped jeans and black tee shirts representing a classic rock band look.




This is a close up shot used by the Sony FS100

An 18mm lens was used to show a wide shot of the band, this wasn't just for adding a different type of shot, but also to show the urban surroundings which fits in with the rock band genre. The 18mm lens allows us the audience to see the wide shot.

For the time lapse in the video we used a Cannon 5D with a 24mm lens, this because the Canon 5D produces high quality still shots which is what we required to make the shots look as good as they do. The time lapse adds another element to the music video, it engages the audience, without the time lapse the video would just be a band performing which would boor the audience. Unfortunately because of the GIF not having sound you cant tell that the time lapse is also in a transitional phase in the song, this lincs well because the time lapse shows the transition from day time to night time in the Urban area, the rest of the video is then filmed in the dark after the time lapse. The use of media technologies helped with this, in this case it was a piece of editing software called Adobe Premiere.

We used the Sony FS100 for our tracking shot to link the band members together with the energy of the song.

Editing using media technologies

When using Adobe Premiere as a editing software, we synced up the base track to start with, the reason we did this was so that it would be much easier when it came to choosing the right shots to put in where because the sound would all be linked up, due to this it gave us more opportunity to try different shots and see which one worked the best and where, this is because syncing up the base track enabled us loads more time.



We decided to use close ups on the musician that was playing at that point in the song, this is because the audience of a rock band mainly play instruments themselves and therefore appreciate someone else playing the instrument professionally that they play in their own time.




This was especially important with the main singer Max because we wanted to emphasise the lyrics of the song, and the only way in doing this was taking close ups on him singing.







The video was edited at the same pace to the song, the reason behind this is because it gives more excitement to the video, it keeps the audience focused on what is going on and stops them getting bored of what they're watching. We cut on the beat of the song as well to emphasise the shape of the song.
We chose to put the ramped shot in where the drop of the song is because we felt like it would help with reflecting the image of the song in the transitional process between day time and night time in the video.




At the end of the video where the sound of the video is fading away like it does in most rock songs we used the editing technique of slow-motion on the symbol of the drum to help exaggerate the fade.

Using media technologies to create a website 

Comparing WiX and Wordpress, last year we were asked to look at both website designers and find which one you prefer. I could tell that Wordpress was for a much more professional look compared to WiX, but WiX was much easier to make with loads of different templates on it.  I bared this in mind when we finally came up with the sort of image we were looking for on the website and chose to use WiX because the website that we were going for was going to be basic.

Once i had decided to use WiX to make our website it was time to choose the right template. We chose this template, which was called Jazz Musicians. Using WiX gave us loads of different options for the template. We got the idea of the template from researching on the internet, we found Imagine Dragons's home page and thought that we should use it as the type of website we were going for.

  

WiX enabled us to link the pages on the website together through the animations button as well as letting us set up a gallery slide on the home page. Both of these were very simple to do as well because of the accessibility of WiX enabling us to customise the template.

Due to media technologies two of us were able to log onto the same account from different devices and edit the website which enable us to make the website pretty quickly.

Media technologies also enable us to video our progress on the website and to see if the change looks good or not. We did this through quicktime player which is a software on Mac.

Using media technologies to create a Digi-pack

 Media technologies enable Alex to use photoshop to create the Digi Pack. Photoshop is the best programme for editing photos on the market, it allows people to layer photos which helped Alex to compare the different ideas we came up with very easily and we could then choose the one we prefer. Photoshop also enabled Alex to cut out and edit people effectively which is what he mainly did.

The creation of the digi pack was very creative and probably seemed very hard but it was very basic. We got a picture of the 'moon' by using one of our teacher's head.

We added what looks like as space by using a ragged jacket with the patterns on it.

Putting people on the moon was the easy part, all we did was take a picture of each individual band member against a white sheet of paper in the photography studio, which made it easier for Alex to place them into the frame on Photoshop along with the bald head and the jacket.

This was the final result.

Focus Group

A focus group is when you get a collection of people together to discuss about something in particular. The purpose of a focus group is to get feedback from a neutral point of view. In preparation to the focus group we had to get the final cut of the video ready, the existing website and the existing digipack.
When it came to running the focus group we were (4 of us) were in a classroom with a media class in the year below us with their teacher and we asked them questions on our products that we have created. When asking the questions we were advised to ask them in a different way to get the best and most effective response to help us improve, these questions were
What do you think about the digipak?
What do you think this band is like?
What words you pick to describe this band based on the digipak?
The reason why we are supposed to asking questions like this compared to asking what people like about the website or the digipack is because in this case if they don't like anything then they will say so, we can then learn from the feedback and look on improving the products. Whereas if we just ask what the focus group like about the products we wont find out if there is anything they don't like. We recorded our findings from the focus group with a voice recorder, this was effective because not only does it let us look back on the focus group and see the exact feedback we got from the group, but we managed to do it discretely because its not like we had a big camera in the individuals faces which would likely effect what the individual was going to say. We had a phone on the table which hardly anyone noticed.

The key findings we got from the focus group were

• Too much space on the home page 
• The products on the store page needed to be added- we showed them the products that would be added and they said that the products needed to be neater  
• The lion needed to be clearer 
• The digi pack and the website needed to be linked together better 

Website before focus group

After the focus group

As you can see from the video before the focus group compared to the video of the website after the focus group we have changed a few bits around mainly because of the feedback we got in the focus group.
For example:
That empty space on the home page has now gone
The products have been added
And the lion picture is clearer
The focus group really helped us to develop the website and digi pack from the advice given to us.

update on the website

I spoke to Phil on Friday about the website and he was basically telling me that we are not gonna go very far with the website if we are just making it up on the spot, we should look at other websites for inspiration. This really annoyed me at first as we spent quite a lot of time on the website, but then i realised that we really hadn't gone very far with it at all so i took Phil's advice and started to look at some other websites for inspiration.

Looking at these two websites is what has given me the inspiration. I think the simple look is the best for us. 

feed back on website

From the feedback to the video, the main area that appeared to come up the most was the background photo for the pages, this is still a working progress for us however. But we are looking for a abstract photo, so we do know what we are looking for which is good. Mainly the advice that we got was to make the gallery slide on the home page fit the home page better and put it below the top half of the page so that people dont see the top of the gallery when opening up onto the home page which looks scruffy.