Antonia signing off her blog (100th blog)

                                 Take 1

                                               Action

Question 1: In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak)?

Question 3: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Question 4: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Points made after the rough cut viewing of our video

 Esther Mongo 17

"I really like where your video is going. I love the wind blowing effect in the purple scene use it more"

After hearing this but of feedback we went on to use the purple scene throughout most of the video cutting between all the different scenes. This is the scene that started the video as this seemed the strongest and most liked one.

 Ishail Hashir 18

"I love the couple scene bit but some of the scenes are on screen are on for a bit too long."

This bit of information was very important as it helped me when it came to editing to make sure that each scene was on screen for the right amount of time. I made sure to only use the couple scene in the first bit of the song and once the chorus began it changed scene to show a change in the mood and beat of the song.

Korrie Powell 17

"The concept is good but perhaps include more scenes because the scenes feel quite repetitive"

This was very helpful imformation because it prompted us to go and film two more scenes the following monday which was the white wall scene and party scene. R and B music videos tend to have 4 - 5 scenes in their videos and we only had 3 so this helped to allign with the actual conventions of the genre of video we were trying to create.

Cinema screening 

The audience's reaction was very heartwarming. They kept cheering and saying how "Sick" it was. 

Cinema screening response

Ancillary feedback

This bit of feed back really helped me during the production stages of my ancillary work as it highlighted what did and didn't work. All of the people who I asked for feedback said they could clearly identify my synergy links. One of my peers Titilope said that she thought my poster looked really realistic and that I had made the artist look very much believable. 

Why getting feedback is important

Getting feedback is very much important both for the music video we made for our media course but also in the real world because it enables you to stay on track and produce a video that will meet the  needs and wants of its intended viewers. If no feedback is given about a video or ancillary work during the production stage it may likely not be recognised by its intended audience and they may decide they don't want to buy it.

Look at the post below to see my photoshop construction process in detail!

Goodbye

We have reached the end of my blog.
It was a long and stressful time, but it was shared with good friends and the outcome was fantastic. Thank you to my group members Antonia and Jessica for being so great.
Last but not least thank you to Rebecca for putting up with me!
BYEEE

Evaluation 1

To Vernallis and Goodwins theories I think that I stuck to them as the music video followed the typical ideas of other RnB music videos rather than challenging them. We used jump cuts for example in the ecouple scenes as they are walking into the room and also when she takes his phone the camera shows the same scene from a different angle, we also used a faded effect for the flashbacks to show the contrast of the past and present times being different in terms of time and sad times to better times. We used four different base trakcs to keep going back to as seen in most music videos e.g. for each chorus going back to the same shots.Acording to Andrew Goodwins theory the music video is both amplification and illustration as we show the mood that it's happy as she is living a better life without her ex boyfriend but also showing following the lyrics in the bridge as the mood goes really sad so we have the footage also going along with this mood.

Evaluation 2

Evaluation 3

Evaluation 4

After the cinema viewing I got a lot of good feedback from people such as the storyline was very clear and that they liked the way the music video was edited and how the couple scenes where a really good way of showing their past and present times, but there's always room for improvement like the lighting wasn't always consistant which is true as it was hard to walk backwards and look at the postition of the light and also that we lacked a bit more base tracks as people thought it was too repetative even though music videos are meant to be repetative.


                                               

For my ancillary work I also got very good reviews as they said my work has a clear link and continuity with the music video to the CD front,back and inside panels. I did take into account the feedback as I changed it around a lot as the text was way too cramed into one small space so I re-arranged everything. The colour of the most important text is now white as it stands out more than before as everything just blended in together, I also changed the colour as I got told that it lacked colour.

Photoshop construction process (Advertisement)

This was the original picture that I wanted to use and the original background colour but it just seemed too dull for my liking so I decided to start again from scratch.

 

I started with a blank canvas and filled it dark green. Then I went on a colour wheel tool and added saturation to end up with different blends of green. Then I used the gradient tool to fade the background and then placed my chosen image onto the advertisement and erased its original background.

Then,  I added the artists name onto my adertisement and used the bevel and stroke tool to manipulate the lighting within the text.

Afterwards, I added a text entitled 'out now' onto my advertisement and placed it at the bottom. Then I adjusted the glow of the text to make it stand out.

Then I added the album name as well as featured hits to my advertisement to attract fans who have heard the songs. 

Next, I added in music icons such as spotify, itunes and google play so that fans know where they can purchase the album. I also added in a picture of the front of the album cover and also the website at the bottom right hand side of the advertisement.

Then I added in the record label logo. And added a drop shadow on the artist to make her more 3D. I moved the shadow to the right to make it look more realistic.

Photoshop construction process (front of digipak)

I started by changing the background colour of my canvas to green and used the gradient tool so it had a fade effect. I then went on to add my chosen front cover pic of the artist and erased the original background of the picture.

Then I added the artists name to the top of the front cover as well as the album name at the bottom.

 Next, I went on to add the tracklist to the back of the digipak and alligned the text so that it was in the centre.

 Then, I added in the barcode to the bottom right hand side of the back as well as the copyright information at the centre bottom.

 Afterwards, I went online and found the copyright logo and added it next to the copyright information. I also out the artist name and album name on the spine of the digipak.

Then I added in the record label logo 'EMI' to the spine of the digipak as well as the back.

After this, I thought about what else I could change and realised the picture looked a bit too 2D so I added a drop shadow to make the artist stand out on the page.

Photoshop construction process (Inside of digipak)

I started with a blank canvas and filled the background green and then used the gradient tool to make it have a fade effect. Then I constructed a circle as a base for the CD.








Then I filled the circle in black and put the artist name and album name at the top of the CD. I then put the copyright information and EMI record label logo on.

Then I lay my first image on the left side of the inside and erased around it with the magic wand tool before placing it centre.

I then put my other two chosen pictures onto the canvas and placed them behind the first picture so it looked like they were standing behind eachother. Then I used the paint tool so slightly fade the top bits of the back pictures so the front one standed out more.

Lastly, I used the drop shadow tool to make the images pop and stand out.

Final Advertisment

This is my final Advertisment I changed it quiet a lot from the mock up as It was way too crowded with text so i made the iage smaller, changed the colour of the font as it had too much black and didn't stand out at all so the important text is white so that it stands out a bit more.

How I edited my Advertiment

This is how I've used photoshop to edit my ancillary work I didn't film my screen for the whole process because I lost my USB where I kept all my Ancillary work so I had to re-edit my advertisment as i didn't save a backup copy but I got the begining of the process which bassically shows how I  removed the background and added the other half of her body using another photograph and getting rid of of clip in her hair.

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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

view on:
http://app.emaze.com/@AOFTFCIL/evaluation-question-1

http://app.emaze.com/@AOFTFCIL/evaluation-question-1

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak and advertisement)?

How Effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak and advertisement)?

Evaluation Question 3: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

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

Evaluation question 3 from Bernice Mulenga

Evaluation Question 4: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Direct link to the website made for this question------> http://a2set42014.wix.com/question4

FINAL ADVERTISEMENT

FINAL ANCILLARY

FINAL Album Cover & Inside Panels

 

This is my finished album front cover which I think is pretty effective as the artist is the main focus and she is clearly on the front cover making direct eye contact witht the audience which is important in building a relationship with the target audience.

                               
This is the final inside panels that I made using photoshop. I managed to make the CD look like the Keyshia Cole one that I got inspiration from it was quiet hard finding a picture that wouldn't get cut off by the hole of the CD. I changed the colour of the CD and Booklet so that they don't blend in to the background of the CD so I just kept it at a brighter purple rather as it stands out compared to the greyish purple in the back.

Blog health check

My To Do list:

1.  Post my mock-ups and plans for my ancillary (both pieces) and make it really clear where my ideas have come from and how they link to my research
2. Post a short list and final choice of photos, along with a brief commentary explaining why I have chosen them specifically.
3. Post an overview of the construction process using photoshop
4. Post audience feedback during the construction process to help me with question 4 of the evaluation.

I have completed most of these tasks so all I have to do is post them to the blog. As for the other posts I will set aside some hours this week to do this.

Mock up of advertisment

I got some great feedback from my teacher on things I could improve such as the text being muddled up and not being clear enough. I'm going to act on these things I have been told to improve. I also asked other people to see what they thought of it and they also mentioned the text being a bit hard to take out the important bits and the positioning being all crammed in.

Mock up Album cover

This is just an idea of how I want to lay it out and where I want the font ect. it's not a really edited cleanly edited but it's just an idea of how I want it to look. I'll probably change the positioning of it and add the record label ect.