Evaluation Question 4

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

Media technologies from Emily Friend on Vimeo.

Blogger: I used this website in the planning stages of my production. It was very useful as it is so customisable - I was able to pick colour schemes and themes that matched how I wanted my final product to look, creating a kind of 'brand'. Also, it allows users to embed different kinds of media into their posts, which meant I was able to present my research in planning in more interesting ways, such as Prezis and video clips and well as images. Furthermore, I was able to store photos in draft posts so I could access them at home as well as at school.

Vimeo: I used this website to upload all the videos I made, from research and planning to evaluation and the final product. I had to work around the 500MB per week limit on free users, so had to make sure that if I wanted to upload multiple videos in a week, that the file sizes were suitably small enough that I would be able to upload them all in one week.

SurveyMonkey: This is the website I used to conduct my audience research. It was a good choice because of the ability to customise the types of questions you want to ask. If you want the audience to choose from a specific range of answers, you can list multiple choice options. You can also get them to rate their opinions on a scale, and if you require longer answers, you can add text boxes for respondents to comment in. This was a benefit to both us and the respondents as it did not take long to take the questionnaire, and we could receive the results instantly, and have them summarised in diagrams or graphs, which made them easy to interpret. This meant we could get a good response from our target audience, so we could take their opinion into account when creating our video.

Prezi: This website allowed me a more visually interesting way to present my findings, whether it be my own planning or secondary research. It has  more sophisticated transitions and layouts than PowerPoint. Also, it could easily be embedded into my blogger posts to add to my blog.

PowerPoint: Most of my blog posts were created on this programme. It allowed me to add text and images onto the slides, change the format and colour schemes to match my blog, and could easily be saved as a JPG file and uploaded onto my blog. I used it to annotate the graphs from my audience research, and present my findings in more creative ways than a block of text. 

Photoshop: I used this software when creating the ancillary tasks. I used it to crop the images we had taken, then used the 'dodge' tool to brighten the background and not the actors, to remove the creases from the backdrop. I could also use the 'burn' tool to darken the actors to make them stand out more. We then added text, and used the paintbrush to doodle on the image to make it more interesting. 

Video camera: We used a small handheld camcorder to film our main task. This was perfect as we had to film in a lot of different locations, most of which did not have a lot of space. The camera was easily portable and still produced an HD image.

DSLR: We also used a still camera to take the photos we used in our ancillary tasks. This meant we could have high quality images, and adjust the focus to they were sharp. We could clearly see the difference between the photos taken on our phones compared to the camera.

Tripod: This was vital for taking steady shots. We used one for both our main task and the ancillary tasks to make sure the shots didn't move or come out blurry. It was particularly useful in our main task for getting more unusual shots where it was have been difficult to stand with a camera, for example on the back of a sofa against a wall, above the actors head. We could also have several camera set up at the same time if we wanted to, such as when we filmed the band shots, to make filming time more efficient.

Lights: When we filmed the band shots we borrowed some lights from the photography studio. This allowed us to light the room so that it appeared quite dark, but we could still see the actors, and make it appear more like a stage performance. Also, as we were filming in a drama room, we could use the spotlights on the ceiling to add to this effect.

Messaging: We were able to communicate by text or via Facebook messenger, so that the message could be received instantly. This was very beneficial as the people involved all carry their phone with them everywhere, and would have notifications appear from Facebook. This meant we could get a quick reply and plan easily.

YouTube: This website was useful in the research stages, as it allowed me to watch existing music videos and spot codes and conventions which could be applied to my own work. 

Corel VideoStudioX7: The editing software I used to create my final music video is Corel VideoStudioX7. This software had all the features I needed to create my production. I could cut down the length of shots, mute them and overlay the song we had chosen. It allowed me to alter the duration of clips so that cuts matched the beat of the song, and I could match them up to the song so that it appeared that the actors were singing. Corel offers the option to add text, something which was more useful in evaluation videos than the actual product, as well as different transitions. There are also filters and effects which can be applied to clips. For example, I had to use the cropping effect to remove something from the background of one of the shots. Finally, the video can be rendered and uploaded onto Vimeo, then embedded onto my blog.

Audience feedback

We asked for some audience feedback for our work, in order to see what we had done well and what could be improved. We asked some A Level Media students for some feedback, as well as a student who does  not study media, in order to get the opinion of a 'real' audience member.

This is the feedback from the media students:

This is the feedback from the student who does not study media:

We then asked for some feedback on our ancillary tasks. This is what the media students said:

And this is the feedback from the student who does not study media:

We then asked for some professional audience feedback. This is what our previous media studies teacher said:

He also identified the intended audience for our media product, and thought it was appropriate based on the actors being of the same age as the target audience, with representation of both males and females. Some strengths included the cutting between the different part of the narrative, and the plot twist at the end of the video. To improve, he suggested that the editing pace should be faster by reducing the shot lengths, and that there should be some more close-up shots used. For the ratings at the end e gave 5/6 for both being technically convincing and the product being successful.

Preparation of ancillary tasks

For the album advert, we wanted to add 5-star ratings to make it look more realistic, so used an image of 5 plain stars and manipulated the image to make it fit more with the look of our poster:

Completing this task has allowed me to document the development of the ancillary tasks, from initial ideas and planning, to taking the photographs and then editing them into the finished product.

Shooting schedule

Test footage

We planned to use some slow-motion shots in our video, so decided to film some test footage to make sure the idea would work. I thought if we filmed our actors dancing and lip-syncing at double speed, then slowed it down to normal speed in editing, it would look like they were moving in slow motion, but the dancing and lip-syncing would still match up to the song. I got the idea from seeing how they film certain songs on the TV show Glee. For example, in the last song of the series, this technique is used, as shown in a Youtube video posted by one of the cast:



This is how it looked in the show, slowed down:



I then watched a music video which I thought had probably used this technique as well, and watched the 'behind the scenes' video which showed that they had done what we wanted to do in our video. 






This showed me it was possible, so we decided to try it ourselves to make sure we could get it to look right:


Slow motion test footage from Emily Friend on Vimeo.

We managed to get the lip-syncing to match up by altering the duration of the video to match the duration of the section of the song. However, due to how much faster it has to be in order to be effective, it may be a problem for the dancers to keep up and we may not decide to do this in the real thing.

After completing the main task, and excluding the slow motion sections, I can see this was the right choice as it perhaps would not have fit with the happy mood of the song.

Costumes

These are the costumes that our characters wear in our music video:

Completing this task has meant I have justified why our characters are dressed in a particular way for our video, and why this is important to make sure it fits the situation and represents the characters in the way we intended.

Theoretical research

Completing this research has meant I could apply Todorov's narrative theory to my own work. When coming up with the story idea for our video we kept this typical story structure in mind in order to create something that followed conventions. Now that it has been filmed, we can use this structure in editing to make sure it follows the 5 steps.