Evaluation- Q4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

BLOGSPOT



I used blogger as an online journal to mark my whole production process from start to finish, it enabled me to add both pictures and video clips to my post to make them more blog friendly. it also gave me the chance to edit my posts.








IMOVIE
Imovie is a programe created by apple. It helps you nto store, record and edit your films. it offers a wide range of features. such as:
Direct trimming of video and audio clips in the timeline
Snapping sync for video and audio, audio waveforms and listening to audio while scrubbing, multiple clip selection, direct import from iSight, full-screen previewing. One video track, two audio tracks. Sample sound effects included, some from Skywalker Sound. Voice-over narration. Titles with effects such as 3D spin, converge, bounce across and ending credits motion. Transitions, such as cross dissolve, disintegrate, twirl, scale down and warp out. Video effects, including fast motion, slow motion, reverse fast/slow motion, brightness and contrast, electricity and fairy dust effects. Creation of still frames from video. Splitting clips. Extracting audio from clips.

By using imovie it helped me to recreate what i thought was an R'n'B music video. It helped me to learn about timing, a way of adding the clips to match the audio, especially when the characters were singing and dancing. It also helped me add the black and white effect to my video as i wanted the audience to concentrate on the content of the video and not what backgrounds/colours were chosen.



PHOTOSHOP



Photoshop is part of the Adobe Master Collection CS3 (Creative Suite) range. by using photoshop i was able to create a magazine cover and a CD digipack by using some of the following tools:







as you can see, the text tool played a vital part in the creation of my digipac, as well as move tool whic helped me to change the positions of my wording. i was also given the option to 'Transform' objects that were on different layers which i then rotated for the sides of my digipack. Photoshop also enabled me to make the right scaling for my digipack.






YOUTUBE

Youtbe became very helpful to me as i used it as a way to learn more and more tricks from photoshop. As Youtube is a global broadcasting site, i was able to find a wide range of videos for what i was looking for, from photo retouching to brightness and contrasts, youtube helped me decrease the time it took to edit my ancillary pieces.




















VIDEO CAMERAS


i used a sony video recorder to record my clips, the camrea gave me the options to control my lighting and sound within the clips . the use of tripods helpd me to manipulate my camera movement for certain shots.


SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

Social networking sites like facebook helped me to get audience feedback, this played a vital part in my production process like my magazine cover as feedback showed me the likes and dislikes of the audience from what i had done up to that point.

In conclusion digital technology played a vital part in my production process as without them my production may have not been believable as it is and i would not be able to pass my ancillary pieces as real ones. i would not have been able to give a non linear narrative to my video and i would not have been able to manipulate the pictures in both my ancillary tasks.

evaluation- Q3.What have you learned from your audience feedback?

for my audienc feed back, i posted my magazine cover, followed by the design for my digi pack on facebook, a social networking site. i asked what they though should be changed and what they liked about the design.

on the original magazine cover i had the main artist plus two female charaters, on the front cover, i thought this would have been affective but my audience feedback gave alot of negative comments because it 'complicated the image to the caption and didnt give a clear sense of what/who the main story of the magazine would involve.' i found this feed quite helpful as it showed me what the audience wanted.

Evaluation- Q2.How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

the main product that i chose to do for my advanced production was a music video, accompanied by a magzine cover and a cd digi pack...
i think altogether the three products worked well as they all played a part in bringing believablity and helping to promote the artist. with my magazine cover i thought that showing the main character with a female character would help to promote the artist as a person and having a female on the cover could insinuate some type of relationship and also connote the inspiration to his song.

on the front cover i have kept the design simple,

i have used the background image of a tree,

as i thought that represented the idea of 'taking things slow' to a different extent as what commotes time better than the aging of a tree. with the writng i have used four different colours to make it stand out, the colours used i matched to his clothing as a way to bring a sence of 'togetherness' on the cover.

in total i feel as though the tasks complimented eachother but i found it hard to figure whether to put the featuring artist on the cover also. then i remembered that it was an album cover i was making so it is only the recording artist that stays on the cover.

Evaluation- Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.

For my Magazine Cover, instead of challenging media conventions, i thought it would of been easier to go along with them, but instead of just sticking to to the stylistics of an independant urban magazine, i added some characteristics of a more mainstream magazine... usually the magazine cover for an urban magazine would have maybe just the main feature artist on the cover with the names of other artists surrounding it like the one on the right. However, other magazines other magazines may only have the name of a certain artist that may be the main purpose of the magazine. for example.. Complex magazine only has Keri Hilson in a huge font and the other artist are in a much smaller font and harder to find. My magazine however, has a range of interviews with certain artist, and focuses on the artist in the current single rather than one talking about an album. as you can see fro the image on the left. and instead of having just one artist on the cover i have three. i did a range of photoshoots in which i was able to choose what pictures would of went best on both magazine cover and album. for the magazine cover i had a range of pictures of the characters either by themselves or with each other. The song i chose was made by a friend who allowed me to use his name but not him in the video. as the he was not already famous i thought that making a mainstream video would help to boost his credibilty. i thought that if i made a video that appealed to everyone, it would help expand on audience credability. from the main conventions of an r'n'b video, i changeed the idea of the females being disrespected, from the content of the lyrics there were no diminutives so i wanted to represent that in the actual images of the video. i found that my music video was similar to other r'n'b videos in the sense of having a storyline in it. like this one:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFSO9B1K_xw

Final Magazine Cover & CD Cover

Front Cover

this is the front of my cd cover, i matched the writing to certain colours of clot

hing apart from the yellow/gold colour that was used to match his hair. i chose to use the background of a picture that i took of an area in our school premises.

Inside

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