Final post

Over the time I spent in media Alevel I feel I have learnt a lot of things, for example, a massive improvement in organisational skills, I now know how to manage my time a lot more efficiently, and my research and planning skills have improved a large amount also. My skills in terms of media have also improved a huge amount as well, for example my knowledge in codes and conventions, camera angles, Mise en scene and my understanding in genre. My technical skills on digital media have also improved a huge amount, for example Premiere Pro, Photoshop and Illustrator. All of these skills will be very helpful for me in the future as I am hoping to carry on with media in university.

Overall, I have had so much fun over this course, and I didn't really think of it as work, its been great!

- Ella

All final products

EVALUATION Q4

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

Throughout my course I have used a large range of media technologies, which has been extremely helpful for, not only constructing my work, but for planning and research, to create my music video, and ancillaries, to the best of my ability.

example of me using premiere

My Imac

To start off with I used the computer set up I have at home - using the Imac, which I feel is better to use than a PC as once you learn how to use it, it is much simpler and efficient. For example, the quick and easy screenshots one can do. On this computer I used 2 main software to edit my work, which were premiere pro CS4 and the latest update of Imovie. For more complex editing such as the very fast past cuts and slight grading I used premiere pro CS4 as I movie was simply not advanced enough to do so. However for all the very simple editing I used iMovie as personally I found it much simpler and found it to be a much quicker process. I also used Imovie for making quick videos such as the bloopers, my one minute copy, my ancillary and an evaluation question.

example of me using imovie

When creating my ancillary task I used the software adobe Photoshop and adobe Illustrator. I found Illustrator much simpler to learn how to use however. It is also better for me to use personally as it is better to use for creating images that look like an illustration rather than editing the images that one has already taken.


When filming and taking photos (for my magazine advert) I used my own camera, which is the Fugifilm x10 which takes clear and good quality footage, which was great for making my product look more professional.

I used the website Blogger to upload all my products throughout the year, and added every step of the way through my planning and research, sort of like a diary, which was really useful to keep to date with all my work, and to figure out what was missing.

Example of me using notes on my phone
to plan

Weather app

Also throughout the year I used my phone, the Iphone 5S, a sufficient amount to help plan and research for my product. I would use the notes on my phone to make lists of thing I needed to do. I would also use the weather app so I could plan ahead to film. I would also have the Blogger app so I could update my blog posts quickly if I needed to. I also used the app Snapchat to gain some audience feedback, as shown. I also used my phone to film and take photos of behind the scenes. My phone is a very quick and easy way media technology that I use constantly, which is why it was so helpful when producing my work.

example of me using snapchat to
gain audience feedback

My Pinterest mood board

I used Slideshare and Prezi as different ways to present my work, and acted as a fun and different way to present my work instead of lots of writing on Blogger. I also used Pinterest as a presentational device and a mood board. Which was great as I could keep adding to it.

Example of me arranging to film with actors 

I gathered most of my audience feedback from the social media site, Facebook. It was a very quick and easy way to gain plenty of audience feedback for my work. It was also a very easy and quick way in getting in contact with the actors I needed and arranging days to film.






And finally I used YouTube, to not only upload my music video and behind the scenes footage, but also to to plenty amount of research on other music videos, to discover what codes and convention I needed for the genre of my music video. I also used YouTube to research tutorials on techniques to improve my editing skills on premiere pro, Illustrator, and Photoshop - software I wasn't so familiar with. I also used YouTube to create playlists on different parts of music videos I wanted to concentrate on. YouTube was great as it is so easily accessible and you can pretty much find any music video you want to do research from.

my youtube uploads and playlists

EVALUATION Q3

There was this controversy on the content of my video and how the images may be disturbing. I filmed some audience feed back and here is what they said:

Here is some more footage of people giving audience feedback of my video from 3 people from my main target audience;

View on Flipagram

Here are some photos of my target audience watching my video;

View on Flipagram

EVALUATION Q2

EVALUATION Q1

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

Using conventions of real media products while planning is important. To make a great media product you must first understand the conventions of both music videos and your own music genre. To do this I watched many pre-existing texts on YouTube to get a sense of how to adhere to these conventions. 

As the genre of the song is indie/ Indie rock I did plenty of research on YouTube of indie music video, and unsurprisingly they were all very different, hence it being indie (independent). However there were a couple of conventions. For one they were all very creative, and most involved some form of  love relationship/ couple, weather it may be a good or bad relationship. Often quite dramatic with a strong narrative. for example Amber Runs 'I found'. All of these conventions I tried to adhere to in my music video. For example I tried to be very creative with my opening title. I spent a lot of time working on the way it looked and how it was shot, but I think it was work it as it come out quite well. I wanted the titles to be different and open to interpretation.

I also wanted to make my music video really powerful with a strong message behind. These videos seem to be the ones that stand out the most and leave people thinking about them for a long time after wards. The messages are generally based around a specific topic and how that topic effects people. - e.g, Homophobia, Racisism, Sexism, Rape etc. And that how I came up with the idea to base my music video around Alcoholism and the effects it has on people and the people around them. Two very powerful music videos that stand out to me and have inspired me are Hoziers 'take me to church' (which is about homophobia and a gay couple trying to cope with the harsh reality of the world), and Lady Gaga's 'Till it happens to you'(which is about rape in university campuses and the struggles they go through.) But the main music video that inspired me was Alt-J's 'Breezeblocks', as not only is it a music video with a powerful message and a sense of drama to it, it is also a backwards music video.A lot of aspects have inspired ideas for my music video, for example the low key lighting, the (backward) smashing of bottles, the enigma at the beginning and the answering of questions at the end, also The very opening clip is a woman in a bath dead surrounded by bloody water which is what inspired me for Jess's death scene. 

my video compared to "Laura Palmer"

I thought not only would it be so much simpler for me to film and edit, but also I feel it would be better and more aesthetically pleasing to have one star image in my music video instead of a whole band. I got the inspiration for this idea from Bastille's Laura Palmer music video.
I think this also will be good as in the song I chose they have technological musical instruments to which I did not have the facilities for.











For my ancillary task, I mainly looked at the digipaks of Bombay Bicycle club, and used their patterns and changed and developed it into my own by adding things that are represented in the music video and song eg Ollie's glasses, alcohol, and the lights.
To also make it more my own design I made the writing on the CD backwards, in reference to the music video being backward. I chose the main colour of the digipak, Blue, in theme to the rest of my music video, as it is the main colour theme in my music video. 

My Digipak compared to Bombay Bicycle Clubs single covers

And finally for my magazine advert, I did lots of research on the layout of loads of different adverts, and found codes and conventions i needed to add to my advert - the name of the album, who its by, when its out, the company logo in the corner, where to find info (website) and reviews. Then added a layout on a photo I took whilst filming Ollie. However I made it more linked to the digipak by adding the boarder to it.

My album poster compared to others

Overall I fell like I stuck to codes and conventions quite well in my main 

task whilst also developing them well enough to make them my own and more creative.

Bloopers

Ancillary task

Final cut

audience feedback of ancillary

Here is some feedback for my ancillary task from my target audience. It was very helpful for me as I could change the things they thought would make it better and keep in the things they liked.

Creating ancillary

As i already practiced making the front cover on Illustrator it was much easier for me when it came to making the rest of my digipak. 

So firstly I make the boarders and added the colours to them as shown. and then i had to make the decision of what to add into each box. It was important that they linked to the video. so i thought i would add the wine bottle in one box, the lights in another, and the spilling wine glass in another. and on the back cover I would add the Microphone. 

Here is a screenshot of me adding the boarder to the side with the wine on it;

it was important that the image looked somewhat illustrated s the was a setting on Illustrator to make it look less real, as shown below:

Also when selecting an image it was important that it was a vector (no white in the background) so I Youtubed a way to delete the white in the background on illustrator, as shown below;

 And then I added in the text on the back of the digipak as shown below.

And then added them all together to create my digipak

And just to point out, the font on the top middle is backwards in reference to the backwards music video of the single.

Illustrator practice/ ancillary?

A lot of the singles from Bombay Bicycle Club appear to all have a very similar pattern to them - 4 boxes and 4 similar pictures within them, so i thought it would be a good idea to do my Digipak in a similar way. So on Adobe illustrator I attempted to replicate the boxes.

So first there were a few things I had to learn on illustrator before I could get started, so I got my sister to teach me a few things, for example how to cut images and add an effect to them, so for mine I noticed there is alot of grain on their album covers so I thought it would be good to know how to do that for mine;

And then I began to create the necessary shapes for my potential album cover

And so when I got the shape of I wanted it was time to choose the necessary colours for it, so I watched my video through and tried to pick out the three colours that are prominent within it. Which i felt were blue, red and purple, so I tried it out;

However these colours did not so I experimented a bit more to figure out which colours looked go;

When I found the right colours it was time to add something in the four boxes, jut to test it I thought of the glasses Ollie wore when he sings the song;

And then I found a font that I thought would be good and then downloaded it an added it;

Overall I thought this could be something really good for my ancillary work, with maybe something different and a bit more creative than the glasses in the boxes and maybe different colours. However it might be an issue as I don't know how similar it is aloud to be to the original album cover, so that is something I will ask my teacher.