Friday, 4 April 2014

Dear Moderator,
My name is Jennifer Hutton and this is my blog; it contains all of the work undertaken as part of the G324 A2 Coursework Portfolio Unit within the OCR course in Media Studies.
I chose to work in a group with Joe Burn to produce a promo package to the track "Little Black Submarines" by the American alternative rock band 'The Black Keys'. The project lasted four months, commencing in September 2013 and finishing in February 2014.

I hope you enjoy my work and find it enthralling and interesting.

Please use the navigation pages above to access my work, as organised in: Research, Planning, Construction, Final Products and Evaluation.

Yours Thankfully
Jennifer Hutton

Wednesday, 26 March 2014

WIX EVALUATION


Click on the image above to be taken to our wix website presentation of our evaluation.

QUESTION 1

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

 

This is question 1 of our evaluation, relating to conventions, whether we chose to challenge or follow them. By using a green screen we were able to show the video behind ourselves to show exactly what were were talking about, this saved time during editing and also shows a good use of digital technology.

Wednesday, 5 March 2014

QUESTION 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 

This is a video including the audience interviews concerning the music video. At the end of this video we have answered the question in an interview form regarding what we have learned.

Friday, 14 February 2014

QUESTION 4


We had to start somewhere, so before familiarizing ourselves with more advanced media technologies we made sure we were familiar with the basics. These include;

Microsoft Office - We used the programs within Microsoft Office as 'default' ways of presenting our work. PowerPoint and Word allowed us to present our work simply and easily before we attempted to use more intricate presentation programs such as Prezi and Glogster.
Google Chrome - Searching the Internet was a must for our research. Our chosen browser was Google Chrome, as it is fast reliable and easy to use.
Blogger - The backbone of our technological entourage, we used this website to make an accessible collective of all of our work. The program allowed us to create a blog, edit it's look and create subtitles in order to better arrange our work.
Apple Macintosh - We needed a piece of hardware on which we could use our software and the Apple Macintosh machines were available in our college. We chose to use this over a PC due to it being crafted for educational and creative purposes.

The track we decided to use 'Little Black Submarines' was available in the iTunes store, which we purchased for 99p. We then added it to the iTunes app on our computer at college, which allowed us to store the file and use it in other applications, such as Final Cut Express HD in which we needed the track to create our music video.

We have used Twitter to ask for permission from The Black Keys and their record label to use their track "Little Black Submarines."  We also uploaded our video to this site to gain some audience feedback for another evaluation question.

Prezi and Glogster were useful throughout the project. These two formats of presentation are both web based and very useful due to their ease of accessibility and the boost of presentation when coming to make the evaluations and even if we just want to spruce up a blog post.
Both have many useful features, such as allowing users to add videos, photos and sound, as well as having many animations and images that make the presentations more eye catching. This fixes the audience's attention to the presentation, as many audience members may be very intrigued by how the Prezi or Glogster looks.We have chosen to use these alternative forms of presenting our work in order to diversify the way our blog looks.

We used google docs when obtaining information on our primary audience research so we could create a questionnaire to send to our target audience. Another feature of Google docs is that it creates graphs from the feedback when have received in which we can then clearly present on our blog in a way that is clearly understandable.

The construction element of our project was controlled by final cut and Photoshop. The final digipak and advert were created in Photoshop and the final music video was created on final cut express.

In our research, we often used Microsoft office to present our work. This is because we were most comfortable using this type of software for resenting our work in the earlier stages of the project. We occasionally used Prezi for our work and to upload it to Blogger we used Google Chrome. We usually stuck with the basics during research.

While  planning our music video we used an array of technologies. We used Twitter to get permission from the band to use their song for our music video. Again we used Microsoft Office (Word and PowerPoint) to present a lot of our work rather than just writing it on our blogs as  a post. We planned the structure of our music video by making storyboards then taking pictures of them using a camera to then add to our blog. to then add motion to our storyboards, we used final cut to turn them into an animatic and added music over the top, final cut allowed us to do this, then it was a case of uploading that to youtube then to our blogs. When creating our advert and digipak, we used photoshop to mess around with the layout to find its final form.

From looking at the combination of technologies we used, we can com to the conclusion that each of these technologies have helped us specifically in each of the stages; research, planning, construction and evaluation.

QUESTION 4

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

 

In this 'Prezi' we answered the question in the form of a presentation that is simple and easily read.

Thursday, 13 February 2014

QUESTION 3 - Vox Pop Questions

This is a list of the questions we have specificity constructed in order to ask the interviewees about the music video and ancillary texts. To a certain extent they were based on media theory and conventions, for example the mention of narrative and whether the products contain all of the expected conventions. Other questions are just general, in order to display their opinions about the product.
  1. Overall, what did you think of the music video?
  2. Do you think it links in well with the alternative rock genre?
  3. In your opinion does it like professional? Explain why. 
  4. What did you think of the lip syncing? 
  5. What did you think of the band's performance? 
  6. What did you think of the narrative within the video? Did you understand it?
  7. Do you think the visuals match the music, in particular the lyrics?
  8. What did you think of the micro elements? Including camera, editing and mise en scene. 
  9. What would you say are the strengths and weaknesses of the music video? 
  10. What is your favourite part of the video?
  11. What is your least favourite part of the video? 
  12. What improvements would you make to our music video?

  1. Overall, what did you think about the digipak, advert and logo?
  2. What do you think makes them successful? Explain why.
  3. What do you think of the band image portrayed in all products? 
  4. Do they maintain a good link with the video? 
  5. What do you think of the images used in the digipak and advert? 
  6. Would you be attracted in a point of sales display? 
  7. Do they contain any or all of the conventions you would expect? Which conventions are missing? 
  8. Do you think they would work well with the music video in a promotional package? 
  9. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the products? 
  10. What would you say is your favourite part of the ancillary texts? 
  11. What is your least favourite part of the ancillary texts? 
  12. What improvements would you make to the ancillary texts?

Wednesday, 12 February 2014

QUESTION 3 - Social Networking

This screenshot shows our active work in trying to get audience feedback from a large variety of audience on twitter. Awaiting response. 

Thursday, 6 February 2014

QUESTION 2


This is a written draft that contains all relevant media terminologies that apply to our ancillary texts. Me and Joe have created written drafts before our final drafts so we could get a good idea of the detail that will be going into the way we present it. Detail is just as important as presentation, for this reason I will ensure that the final draft will include more media terms as this is just the starting point to completing Question 2.

Thursday, 30 January 2014

QUESTION 2 - Final

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

I have presented the answer to question 2 as a glogster, which is a form of digital canvas, giving a form of poster answer. To view the answer effectively, make the "glog" full screen by clicking the button in the top right corner (Esc can be used to exit full screen mode).  I have used arrows to link up the text to the relevant image or video of ancillary text in which I hope is easy to understand.
I have produced two Glogsters, the first discussing each ancillary text and the second discussing the narrative and how they all link together.

Thursday, 23 January 2014

QUESTION 1 (Written Draft)


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

When creating our music video we tried to stick to conventions, challenging them when necessary. In our chosen genre, alternative rock, there are fewer conventions than in many other genres, allowing us to be flexible due to it being ‘alternative’.

When selecting the costumes for our actors during performance, we had the band wear everyday clothing, but tried to focus on dull colours such as greys and dark blues to follow conventions of the genre. However we attempted to challenge conventions by having one of the band members (Joe) wearing sweat pants, instead of jeans. This effort to challenge conventions was particularly gentle, as we stuck to the colour palette we aimed for, and wearing different leg-wear isn’t something that would make a massive impact on the audience. 

We used a dark setting, which is a convention in most alternative rock music videos such as ‘The Importance of Being Idol’ by Oasis and ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by Nirvana. We used these music videos for inspiration for the mise-en-scene, as we believe them to be influential music videos within the alternative rock genre. However we used a construction light to illuminate the stage and highlight the band.

Often in alternative rock music videos the main aim is to boast the artistry or ‘musicianship’ of the band. We have followed this convention by adding several close ups and extreme close ups of each band member playing their instruments to emphasize their musical talent. We added close ups and extreme close ups of the lead singer, lead guitarist, drummer and keyboardist playing their respective instruments when they were most prominent within the song.   

We also followed the convention of alternative rock videos in which half of the footage is performance and the other half is narrative, being alternated between each other.  We did not want to challenge this convention as the structure of the music video is very important and the simple method of alternating between the two and keeping their ratio roughly even is the best way to structure an alternative rock music video in my opinion.

We made sure that the shots kept up with the pace of the songs, having shots of a slow pace of edit during the acoustic parts of the song and quicker paced shots when the beat picks up. This ensures that what the audience hears matches what they see. This is conventional throughout alternative rock music videos as well as those from other genres.

We attempted to bring more attention to the lead singer, a convention often used in the alternative rock genre along with most others. As well as focusing on the lead singer by having him mime the song and adding a larger ratio of footage of him compared to the other band members, we also had him wear a red hoodie under his coat in order to bring attention to him during shots in which all of the band are performing.

Thursday, 16 January 2014

FINAL ADVERT

This mine and Joe's final advert piece. The original advert was square but we had to change it to and A4 layout.
The mise-en-scene on this advert we found appropriate as when looking at the alternative rock genre, the dark and mysterious look we found the most common when looking at a large selection of alternative rock adverts. We have included the basics of an advert just as websites etc. rather than overloading the page with little icons irrelevant to our work.
The singular image used is an effective form of cinematography due to the band looking straight at the camera, giving the effect that they are staring straight at the audience.
In conclusion I am happy with Joe and I's advert and that it would be a successful advert if actually published.

FINAL DIGIPAK


Please find here the finished digipak and disc which has also been produced as part of the final product. 
In my and Joe's opinion, the most effective section of the digipak is the back cover because of the photo and how is stands out with the use of the light, highlighting the message 'there is always a light at the end of the tunnel'.


FINAL CUT (Little Black Submarines)



The same problem has occurred when uploading this final cut to YouTube as to what happened to our Rough Cut 2. The YouTube server has knocked our video out of sync. When watching our video on final cut it was perfectly in time but for some reason I can not explain why it has been moved about 1/4 of a second out of sync.



Final Cut from Joe Burn on Vimeo.

If the YouTube video is out of sync, please use this option. Vimeo is occasionally in sync, the syncing improves as the video goes on.