EVALUATION QUESTION ONE

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

EVALUATION QUESTION TWO

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

Video production feedback

Effective opening with establishing shot evoking home with peaceful non diegetic music added to create the atmosphere of homeliness. A record scratch sound effect suggest the disturbance in the equilibrium and a link into the caption inside. An effective  range of shots show continuity in editing ina pre-song sequence evidencing dialogue and titles. This sequence is then repeated to bookend the video. A striking close up of a mouth links with the lyrics and lip synching is careful. A range of carefully orchestrated shots using effective mise-en-scene with the skeleton in a variety of situations adds humour and engages the audience. Costume is also used to add variety in branding the artist. One shot uses photographs  of the boyfriend and skeleton attached to the wall to add a layer of meaning.  An actress is well directed and the narrative is clearly storyboarded and well planned.  The performance element is filmed effectively in a studio and edited to aid pace and structure showing an awareness of the conventions of the medium. Level 4 is achieved through the range of shots which show creativity and imagination such as the party scene using a green screen to create an in camera effect. Two shots of shadows are filmed and key framed to merge them together.  There is lots of variety to the content showing imagination in the planning stage. A dream sequence is cleverly edited using dissolves and merging layers of video to create a surreal effect. The use of earphones on the actress creates a link with the audio in the video as we hear what she is hearing at points and the audio is edited accordingly.  The level of detail allows level 4 to be achieved despite some issues with white balancing and lighting issues that have been rectified somewhat in post-production. The video has been improved and layers added over a series of weeks which is evidenced in drafts and the web-log.  34/40

EVALUATION QUESTION THREE

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Final Product - Kate Nash The Skeleton Song

TASK 11 Finished Print Artefacts

Magazine  Advert

Album Cover

Inside Panels of  Album Cover

CD

Editing The Album Cover Print Artefact

Original Image

To begin with, I used a brightening tool on the editing software to lighten the bones of the skeleton, I also airbrushed the artists face to remove any shadows and blemishes.

Whitened Skeleton

I then began to experiment with the design of the album cover by layering different filters over the top to give them an indie/alternative design to match the genre of the music. A few examples of the designs I experimented with can be seen below.

Experiment With Filters

Applying Text and PAEC Logo

Next, I began to add the artists name and the album name to the front of the CD cover in order to brand the artist. I kept the same font that I used in the magazine advert in order to introduce a level of consistency which helps to brand the artist in the target audiences minds and make their 'logo' recognisable and more memorable. We also added a Parental Advisory Explicit Content logo in order to warn those planning on buying the CD that some of the songs contain explicit language that might not be suitable for young children or others who may not enjoy hearing expletives whilst listening to music.

Experimenting with different colours

Experimenting with different colours

I experimented with different coloured text and different filters on the central image in order to produce a few different front cover images which I could then show to my target audience and ask for their opinions. The majority of those asked said that they liked the first image, with the triangular design and turquoise font, as it looked bright and interesting and matched the genre of the music well, so we decided to proceed with that as our front cover of the album.

Adding Barcode

Next, I chose an image of the skeleton from our music video for the back of the album cover and edited it with the same design as the front cover. I then added a barcode and began to add text to it to make it look more professional by adding a barcode number and category number like you would see on real album covers produced by real record labels. 

Track-list and copyright information

I looked for the album cover of the real 'Made of Bricks' album by Kate Nash on the internet and after I located it, I was able to include the real copyright information above my barcode. In addition to this, I added the tracklist to the back of the album cover as this is a typical convention. 

Adding a QR Code and PAEC Logo

I decided to add a QR code to the album cover to make it more modern, as many companies do this now in order to make their product easily accessible. By doing this, people would be able to see my CD in stores and simply scan the QR code on their smart phone or any other smart device in order to be directed to a website that would allow them to purchase it online or download it straight to their device. I also added another Parental Advisory Explicit Content logo in order to clarify the explicit language once more.

Research into record labels

I then went onto google and decided to find out what record label has signed Kate Nash in order to be accurate whilst applying the company logos to my album cover. I found that both Fiction Records and Island Records had signed Kate Nash and therefore found their logos on the internet, edited them slightly to remove their backgrounds and then applied them to the bottom left corner of the album cover as seen below.

Applying record label logo

Editing the CD cover together

Finally, I created a spine for the CD cover and included the album name, artists name, category number and main record label on there as this is the information that was located on the original spine of the original Kate Nash album. I then edited the front and back cover together in order to create the full, completed album cover. 

First Draft And Audience Feedback

What have you learned from audience feedback?

Our Initial Critique:

• Our music video is still missing a lot of footage as we have not finished filming certain scenes and part of the lip syncing. 
• The footage has not been rendered so it is not very good quality at the moment
• The birthday party scene was filmed in low quality and to fix this, we aim to make it look like a home movie by applying a record and time effect, but this has not been completed yet.
• The narrative has not been made clear as we are missing the footage that explains what the skeleton is a metaphor for.

Questions for our audience:

• Do you think our video matches the genre of the music well?
• Do you understand the narrative?
• What type of audience do you think would like this video?
• Which channels do you think this video would be aired on?
• Can you tell that there are issues with white balancing in the video?
• Do you think we have incorporated our props effectively? i.e the skeleton
• Do you think we have used humour well in our video?
• What would you do to improve our video?
• Do you think the lip syncing looks natural in the video?
• What do you like about the video? What have we done well?

November feedback

I like the pots showing how you achieved effects on the print production.  THis is what we want to see in terms of documenting the creative process.

 A basic risk assessment, a basic production schedeule,

An attempt to contact the artist shows a willingness to avoid copyright issues.

Storyboards are thorough, if lacking in artistic skill and will aid the direction of the production.

The plot synopsis is thorough.

 You have begun to add some research which is more focused and personalised.  You also offer some discussion of a target audience which can be developed.

You are working at level 2/3 and are capable of the higher grades suggesting that if you apply yourself now you will reap the rewards with a high coursework mark.

Document the creative process and make your input clear.

Ensure all research and planning is now complete.

Gather audience feedback.

Publish a first cut of our edit.

Editing The Magazine Article Print Artefact

Our Original Image

After airbrushing the actresses face and brightening the body of the skeleton using photo shop, I then began to use filters to brighten the image and make it look more attractive. After experimenting with a range of filters I chose to use 'Sun' as it created a nice bright effect that particularly highlighted the leaves in the background.

'Sun' Filter

'Janine' Filter

Adding rating stars.

I tried to begin editing the rating stars onto the photo but soon discovered that due to the colour of the leaves in the background of the image, the text I was layering over the top looked unclear and unprofessional. I ideally wanted to use golden stars, but as they would not show up I experimented with black stars but did not like the way it looked. In order to find a way to overcome it, I looked up other magazine adverts on the internet and found that in many of them, part of the image was blacked out in order to write text that was clear to read.

Example 1

Example 2

Applying to my work

After doing this, I was able to put text over the blacked out area that stood out and looked much better. In order to choose the font I wanted to use in the magazine advert I looked at the logo Kate Nash uses on her website and album covers and discovered that she generally likes her fonts to look childish and handwritten. On the editing software I used, they had a collection of handwritten fonts so I played around with these until I found one that I thought looked good.

Kate Nash's Font

Adding the font to my work

After this, I went back to the internet to find out what else needed to be included in the magazine advert and found out that a price, quotes from magazines and informing the audience of how the CD can be purchased was important. 

Almost finished product

We were happy with how this turned out and therefore showed our teacher and asked for feedback in order to improve. We were told that we needed to leave a natural border around the outside of the image in order to leave room for it to be edited into a magazine without any of the text around the outside being cut out. As we had already saved the image, we were unable to move the text around without having to start from scratch, so in order to overcome this we added a border around the outside to create the same effect.

Finished Magazine Article

The only thing we need to do to complete the magazine article is to add a picture of the finished album cover into the top right corner. We have done the magazine article before we have started the album cover and therefore we can not add this in yet.

Our Creative Journey - Filming

We set up and filmed the lip syncing scenes in order to brand our artist and include performance in our music video. In the photos you can see Katie the director and Oli the camera man setting up to film our actress Lydia. We took photos and printed them off before sticking them up on the white wall behind her. We did this to add narrative to our music video and make the surroundings behind the artist more interesting to look at.

Risk Assessment

Production Schedule

 Production Schedule

When?	The dates that we will be filming on are... - 21st and 22nd of October (during half term) - 1st of November
Who?	The people involved in the making of the film are... Katie - Director Oli - Camera man Kirst - Producer Lydia - Actor
What?	The scenes that we will be filming are... 21st: House 1 Street 1 Field Wall Bedroom Scenes: 1-8 11-15 23-26 27-32 34-37 50 22nd: House 2 Street 2 Scenes: 17-19 44-47 1st Nov White room Lip Syncing Scenes: 9-10 16 20-22 38-43 48-49 33
How?	The type of shots that we will film... - Establishing shot - Tracking shots - POV - High angles - Low angles - Pans - Close ups - Extreme close ups - Mid shots
Which?	The equipment that we will need is... - A HD Camera - A Tripod - A Dolly - A Steady Frame
Props	- Skeleton toy/costume - Normal girl clothes - Halloween decorations - Cardboard boxes - Plaster - Old Photos of girl and ex boyfriend - Box of tissues - Ladder (for the attic) - Extra clothes (to throw) - Birthday cake - Birthday candles - Piano - (School) bag - Witch hat - Trick or treat bags - Car - Wardrobe - Party hats - Party streamer - Photos of girl and skeleton - Pen and paper - Bed - Hammer - Main picture of skeleton - Main picture of boy