Evaluation Question 4

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

Hardware

The hardware that i had used to complete my work was a Canaon FS200 Camcorder. The colour i believe did let us down. When we transferred onto the computer the quality of the filming was not great and i was disappointed with this. However as i did not use the camera, as Sophie was the camera girl, she did say that she found it easy to work. Sophie believed that the camera was simple to understand to use. We also used a tripod for most of the filming, this was because the first filming session most of the filming was extemely shaky. If i was to do this again i would choose a higher quality camera, defiantly have a tripod. Regarding the Digital Camera that we used, Lumix, I found this a high quality camera, most of the pictures if not all came out well, which is what we expected. I would defianlty use this camera again.

Internet

I used the Internet mainly at the start of my project, with the research. I found it useful to find out information on artists, music videos, and posters. I used a popular site 'www.youtube.com'. I used the search bar on the site typing in the video i would like to research. This made researching music videos very simple and easy to do. It meant that it would only take a short time and there was such a wide choice of music videos it made our research. If it was not available to use it would mean using the TV then writing down our results, this could have been very time consuming. To help make my blog look more professional and technological i used a site called 'www.tutorials-for-new-blogger.blogspot.com'. I was able to find HTML codes for my blog, to add scroll boxes etc.

Software That I Have Used To Complete My Coursework

Adobe Photoshop

I used Photoshop to create all of my ancillary tasks. The tools that were used on Photoshop were:

• Filter Tool






• Gradient Tool






• Rectangle Marquee Tool






• Horizontal Type Tool






• Paint Bucket Tool






• Magnetic Lasso Tool






• Hue and Saturation






• Levels






• Curves
  
  

Filter Tool


The filter I used for the entire ancillary tasks was 'Notebook'. It gave it a grey and white effect. I used this tool to create my Digipak, as well as Sophie using it create the poster.















I was able to choice between a variety of filters.

















I then could change the image balance, graininess and relief.


Gradient Tool

I used the gradient tool, on the Digipak front cover. I used it once a filter had been used. It is very faint but just to add detail. Below is an example of how it works:







This is the gradient tool bar, where you can select the appropriate settings.

Here is the gradient i have made. I just dragged the mouse across the screen and you can see the change in light.



Rectangle Marquee Tool


I found this tool most useful, it is basically a select tool. As you can see on the image, there is a variety of 'marquee tools' . You can select pictures in different shapes.

You can see i have selected the image of only me. I could then use other tools, copying it onto anotehr layer, for example a filter.








Horizontal Type Tool


I used this to tool to add text. You can add it vertically or horizontally onto an image.





Here i selcted the fonts i wanted, size and the style (bold etc).



Here is the text. You can apply the effects you have seen above onto text as well.









Paint Bucket Tool



The paint bucket tool, is just to fill in the colour.






You can see that i have just clicked onto the image and began to fill it in. You could use this for a snow effect. I have used it for my digipak.

Magnetic Lasso Tool

The magnetic lasso tool, is a way to select part of an iamge. I found this extremely useful, when creating the disc for my digipak.

As you can i have started to select myself in the image, i then can use effects onto it.

Hue and Saturation

The Hue/Saturation control allows us to change colors (hue), enrich or dull colors (saturation), lighten or darken colors (lightness) and even use it to create a colour cast in an image. It can also be used to adjust tone. I used hue and saturation to change the lighting effects. I was able to alter the darkness or brightness and how much colour was in the image.

Levels

Levels is a tool which can move and stretch the brightness levels of an image histogram. It has the power to adjust brightness and contrast levels. A proper understanding of how to adjust the levels of an image histogram will help you better represent tones in the final image. I have used levels again on the front cover of the digipak just to add brightness.

Curves

Similar to Photoshop levels, the curves tool can take input tones and selectively stretch or compress them. Unlike levels however, which only has black, white and midpoint control, a tonal curve is controlled using any number of anchor points. I used curves on the inside cover of my digipak again to add brightness.

Adobe Premiere Elements

I used Adobe Premiere Elements to create the music video.

The main transition that i used was the cross disvolve, this would fade in two clips together.

However there was a wide choice of other transitions to use.

This is an example of a cross dissolve which, we used on one of our scenes.

To Conclude...

Looking back at the entire project, from the planning to the final project, a range of technologies has been avaible to us. Having the resources that i have been able to use have developed my work dramtically. I am really pleased my finla work and the skills i have got and developed from the process.

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

After looking at the feedback which we received for our rough cut (which we was pleased on). The main outcome was:
- many scenes had become pixellated
- returning to the bench, showing the importance of it to the love story
- adding something to show it has been on a music channel.

For our final cut, we decided on filming people's opinions by using another way of media technology. We hoped that people were as honest as possible.



From looking at what our audiences have said. I am extremely proud of the video itself. I think myself and matt did really well acting it out, especially as we did not plan me being in it. I was pleased with the transitions which we had choosen which our audience did pick up on.

Overall i am pleased with our audience feedback, if it was too be done again, i would maybe interview different age groups to get a different perspective.

Evaluation Question 2

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

I think that my ancillary tasks complement my main task really well. I think that my digipak and poster work really well and resemble our music video. The video is about a love story and the images on both ancillary tasks show that. I decided on putting me on the front cover and Matt on the back to show distant and uncertainty between the couple. The disc had the both of us to show that the love, and the inside leaf showed the bench which resembled the couple as the music video kept going back to it. The video itself was based on black and white scenes which were memories and the coloured scenes were the current. Because of this for the ancillary task choosing grey and white i believed suited. As originally we was going to use black and white but to bring together to colour and the black and white scenes i believed grey was the bets option. The main aspect of the ancillary task was the filter called notebook. I have used that on all my ancillary tasks to show continuity and represent the love between the couple. Latsly we made sure that we had kissing scenes in the music video and had a kissing scene on the digipak. We did this to show the love between the couple. However the main thing i am pleased with is the filter colour on the digipak i think it really potrays the love between the couple and represents the colour and black and white scenes in the music video.

Evaluation Question 1

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

Before Sophie and I created our final products for our media product we researched into great detail, what we wanted to achieve. A lot of our video was focused on the music video 'Love the way you lie' by Rihanna and Eminem. (Click Link to View).
http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=uelHwf8o7_U

Media Conventions Include:


Illustrating the lyrics Expressive lighting Lip SynchingInnovative effectsMise en sceneGenre/tone

Illustrating the lyrics:

The lyrics of the song had a great impact on the video. Repeated through out the song, was Don't let go, never give up its a wonderful life. When it was this part of the song the scenes that were shown were memories in black and white, then cut to a colour scene of arguing.

This is the first chorus, where you can see a black and white memory then flicking to an argument scene where Matt pushes me in the car.




This scene worked perfectly for the lyrics and she throws at the wall, and kisses burn like fire. We filmed this scene with the intention of putting it there and changing it to black and white to become a memory, which has worked really effectively.








This scene was for and he takes her in his arms and he thinks she begins to see. Again this scene shows Matt holding me in his arms which fits with the lyrics




Having the lyrics there, was like a guide, it made filming a lot easier as we could always do what the lyrics say if we were stuck for ideas.

Regarding the love the way you lie music video, we have made similar scenes to that.

This kissing scene is very similar to the love the way you lie video. Both couple are against the wall, and you can clearly see the passion between the couples.

Here is a clear fighting scene between a couple, which we again used from there video. Both girls are pushing the boy away from them, and both boys stand there and do not fight back.

Both scenes here, are the boys from our video and love the way you lie video. Both shots are close ups, and you can see the anger that both characters are showing.

By using love the way you lie as our video to help us for ideas, i believe this was the perfect choice. Both songs are about love, and both videos i believe represent it in a clear way. From using the video it has benefited us greatly, especially when we were stuck for ideas we was able to get inspiration from this video.

Final Cut

Feedback From Rough Cut

After watching our rough cut, we asked fellow class mates of ours to write down what they thought of it.

(Click to enlarge)



Charlotte Kelly's Feedback.











Kirsty Martin's Feedback












Faye Grundy's Feedback











Rebecca William's Feedback













Catherine Long's Feeback







After reading the feedback from my friends the main concern was parts of the video being pixellated. We have now found out that is due to video needed to be rendered, which is what we will do when we finish the video. It is due to the size of the video. We also have decided after reading the feedback and looking at other music videos we would like to use a music channel logo on the video, to make it look more realistic. Because of this we will have to write to the company. We have choosen to use 'The Box' here is our letter to them:

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am an A level student at Wilmington Girls Grammar School and I am writing to request your permission to use your logo of The Box for our music video for the single “Wonderful Life” by The Hurts. With your permission, this logo would be used in my current A-level Media Studies project which involves creating an advertisement poster for a popular music track, as well as producing an album (Digipak) and a music video. If I received your permission, this logo would ONLY be used in an educational context and be viewed by my media class, my teacher and the OCR exam board moderator. It would NOT be released to a large audience. The artist and your company would of course be fully recognized throughout pre- production and the final production itself.

We hope to hear from you soon.
Thank you for your time.
Kathryn Sivers and Sophie Jones

Rough Cut

Filming Finishes

Today we filmed for the last time. We knew exactly what we wanted to film, as we had planned it out before, knowing what we wanted to film.

Below is our filming schedule of what we wanted to film from today:

(Click image to enlarge)

Editing Continues

This is the more shots to show the last stages of me editing the music video.
(Click to enlarge images)

Filming Continues

We have filmed a total number three times. Filming the second time, went a lot better than the first. I believe this is due to knowing what we wanted to achieve from the day. Today we filmed the arguement scences, which honestly i found very difficult. It was hard to make them as realistic as possible, this was because sometimes we would giggle and laugh, and it was hard to be serious, obviously we are not actors. we did most scenes in my bedroom today. We only focussed on arguing scenes hopefully to get a few really good ones to use, looking as professional as possible.