Evaluation of Main task and Preliminary Tasks

In the research and planning stages, I was very motivated in creating a strict plan so that I would get all the work done by the deadlines provided. I had made a plan of my time for all 3 tasks set, bearing in mind that I could not use pinnacle at home, because I don’t have it on our home computer. I made lots of plans regarding filming the scenes, because I thought that the actresses I used had been good enough to give me their time, I must use it wisely. The plans of time definitely stood me in good stead, as on the plan for the music video, I established all what would be needed for the highest grade possible. This way I could keep focus and on track of the task set. The research I conducted in all 3 tasks was I thought the maximum; I did loads so that I was prepared to produce 3 products that would fit in with contemporary music artists and help me identify some of the conventions that I would develop. The research then was evaluated into notes which I then made use of by saying how it has or hasn’t influenced me. For example the videos by Pink and Alexandra Burke influenced me how I would express sadness in a music video - using conventions such as candles, and scenes in black and white. Hallelujah by Alexandra Burke especially influenced me because the format of the video was very much past and present - with flashbacks often in black and white. I therefore followed a similar format when creating my music video - as the studio singing scene narrated the flashback scenes.

Below is a link to the Hallelujah musi video sung by Alexandra Burke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb-K2tXWK4w

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real products?
I think that for all three of my final products, they all fit in with contemporary society. They follow existing trends and are nowhere near revolutionary, a band like the one I am promoting will be in business terms a “cash cow”, this is because they are reliable and audiences will take to them, they wouldn’t become global superstars like Madonna or Michael Jackson and make multi-billions of pounds. I think that the Music Video especially targets all audiences and in some ways does challenge existing media, as much of today’s song lyrics are about relationships and love, some even of a sexual nature. I have used conventions from the music video from Alexandra Burke, when there is the use of candles on the floor when she is singing. However, I couldn't afford the amount of candles that is used in her video - and it would also take a long time to light them all! I did develop this convention - by using a large candle, melting down as a metaphor for 'Lucy' the actress who dies of cancer in the video. The a link to the Hallelujah is embedded above.

How effective is the combination of your main product and anillary trexts?
I think that all 3 of my products combine very well. Reasons for this include the colour schemes, the band image and the story. The colour schemes used are predominantly black, yellow and pink; this is in both the webpage and the CD cover, mainly used to show girlyness (pink) but quality (gold) and grief (black). In similarity, the music video is set in a black studio; this represents grief, as the story is about memories of someone who has died. The beginning of the video shows a white background with black text, I was going to make this yellow and pink – but thought those colours were to fun and would put the audience in a confused mind set – as they are reading about cancer, but seeing fun colours, that is why I used white and black, so that the white would resemble peace, and the black would resemble the grief that is still there. The band image is the same throughout all the 3 products. They are shown as fun loving, and just normal girls. The image of the group on the CD cover and webpage shows them “glamorous”, yet covered up! This is supposed to be the group’s unique selling point, as they are “good girls” and not jezebels. Finally the story is interviewed throughout all the 3 products, the music video bases heavily on an interpretivist’s level, as it is about an individual story. However the CD and Webpage include more personal messages to include the audiences –“have you been affected by cancer?” This makes the audience intertwined into the cancer story, if I were promoting the girl band in real life, then I would expect a mini moral panic to be created to gain as much publicity as possible to get everyone talking about the cancer issue.

What have you learned from Audience Feedback?
I did use lots of audience feedback, as I initially did a survey and asked 6 relevant questionnaires to a sample of school students and teachers in my school. I though that the sample size was good, and the people were of the expected target audience 12-18, although the older participants gave better advice to me. I found that the younger participants gave false answers – just because they had copied their friends. This helped me to appreciate the importance of reliable data. I then correlated the results into graphs which I then analysed. I found that most of the

results questionnaires were helpful, but the most impact was from my friends who don’t do media studies and saw my progress and gave me hints and tips in order to improve. 3 of my friends do A level art, so I found this useful when I was creating my CD package and Webpage.
I have learnt the importance of researching and constantly reviewing the needs of a target audience. Also, the suggestions on acting on their constructive criticism so that the end products meet their needs and will be a success.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Media technology I used included Pinnacle, Dream weaver and Photoshop, along with Movie Maker and a Camcorder. I used dream weaver to create my webpage, I was able to create a page with little or no HTML scripting skills. I used cascading style sheets, each of them linked to the webpage. I had to ensure that all my images were the size that I wanted them to be on the webpage before saving them in one folder which also contained any sound or video files I wanted embedding into my front page. Once my front page was complete, I uploaded my WebPages to an ISP along with any image, video or music files that I had included on the pages. When I viewed my page on line, at first I discovered that there was a red cross in some boxes, this is because I had not put the images in the correct folder, I then uploaded the missing images and put them in my “images” folder, where they could then be uploaded.

I used Adobe Photoshop for my CD cover, inside and back, this enabled me to produce a higher quality CD cover – as I could do much more to the images, such as cropping them down and drawing around them. I found this relatively easy to use, as the plans I had drawn up were not overly difficult, and I had used it last year in my AS media coursework, and have used it to make posters for the schools production play last July.

I used Pinnacle to upload and edit my music video, I filmed the scenes, and because my planning was sufficient, I knew exactly how long each scene needed to be. I therefore was able to create the music video in adequate time. My main problem with Pinnacle was that when I came to “make movie” there were errors with some of my scenes. This completely disrupted my timetable. The schools IT technician was trying to find out all sorts of ways to solve the problem, but in the end I simply had to recapture the scenes from my Camera, then edit the back into the film. One of the hardest parts of creating the movie was matching the song to actresses lip movements so that they were synchronised. Pinnacle allowed me to do this well but in odd places it is out of sync. I used movie maker to create the anamatic, which was relatively easy and didn’t take me long.

Overall I feel that I have created a set of products that relate to an interested audience and that I have progressed significantly in my use of ICT and my understanding of the elements / features of different forums of media.