Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation question 2 from Pedsldn

Evaluation question 1

Evaluation question 1 from Pedsldn

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 4

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

Final products:

Throughout the production of my main and ancillary texts, new technologies have been essential in their creation. Using a variety of digital technology throughout I was able to make my products look aesthetically pleasing and professional. In the early stages of pre-production, digital technology was my main vehicle to explore, research and plan. Likewise, for the post-production and evaluation stages applications such as social media; Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and so on, and editing software such as Photoshop, MovieCutPro and Fireworks were helpful in editing my products to the highest standard as being similar to real media texts. Alternatively, throughout the construction of these products non-digital technology such as the Canon DSLR camera and Steadicam were vital in producing my works.

When planning, my group and I utilised our research skills to find out more about our genre of music (grime) and our unsigned artist, Isaiah Dreads. Google Chrome was our main source for this research and this allowed us find links onto our artist's social media sites where we could gain a flavour for his style. Moreover, once we had decided on our artist it was a priority for us to gain his permission to use his song. Hence, we contacted him via social media (Facebook) which proved useful. 

Isaiah Dreads YouTube
Isaiah Dreads Instagram

Following this our agenda turned to finding a song to shoot for. We immediately found ourselves on SoundCloud listening to his songs, narrowing it down to "Fire Flow" and "Hype in the Booth". Torn between the two, I advertised our query on my Facebook wall in the hopes of others helping us decide. From this we found "Hype in the Booth" to be our winning song with 31 likes compared to just 12 for "Fire Flow".

Later, using Microsoft Powerpoint, my group and I came up with our own ideas for a music video and pitched them to each other. Shane's idea was then voted the most effective. Now we had decided on our initial plan we took our idea to a focus group of randomly selected students aged 17 to 19 where they helped us to develop our ideas and grow our concept. Using Microsoft Excel, we drafted a day-by-day plan of when and what we were shooting following it to a T.

Deciding on a London setting, Tony and I scouted possible areas for shoots on Google Maps and then narrowed down to our final locations. On the day of the shoots we used Canon DSLR cameras and a Steadicam to film our music video. Moreover, we used a combination of natural and artificial lighting using light attachments for the Canon camera for a more effective aesthetic of our video as it would prove to be difficult to edit lighting in MovieCutPro later. For our still camera shots we rested the camera on a tripod fixed to the ground as this was our most stable structure and did not move in the wind. We also used the camera for taking stills for our magazine poster and digipak. Additionally, in order to make syncing the music to lip movement, we played the song on an iPhone whilst filming as it allowed us to align the music with the words from what we had filmed.

With all the filming now done, MovieCutPro and Photoshop became our main tools for editing. Consuming hours of work a day, we all pitched in to cut and edit the music video and refine the images for our poster and digipak. Again, for this, Fireworks was vital in creating the i-D logo and Google Images and YouTube were useful search engines when finding real texts to base our work on and find images such as barcodes and the Parental Advisory label so often used for grime products. The video below demonstrates how Photoshop was used primarily to edit the magazine poster, using knowledge I had gained from YouTube and Google:

Afterwards, I soon generated surveys, planned interviews and questionnaires to take to selected focus groups for audience feedback. Receiving this was significant in editing and adapting our work to be more prolific as the audience feedback was easily applied to reshape and define our work. Creating 5 drafts for the magazine poster I again gave out questionnaires to a focus group in order to decide which draft was most professional.

Throughout the process of pre-production, production and post-production, Blogger has been a useful asset in communicating with my group and tracking our progress. Similarly, Whatsapp and my mobile phone enabled me to contact my group during the course of the entire project, keeping me on track with meet-ups that we had scheduled and shoots we had planned.

Currently in the evaluation stages of our work, Blogger has been essential in organising and presenting my work. Microsoft Powerpoint has been a primary programme for presenting these ideas, using Slideshare as a website to embed the presentations I made and Prezi as an alternative to present my work.

To conclude, new technology has been a very important contributor to the success of my final products, influencing the ways I researched and planned; obtained audience feedback and real media text on which to base my texts was vital. Likewise, using the DSLR camera, Steadicam and various programmes to create and edit my works has also been essential. Using a range of digital technology and physical equipment throughout the project I have built upon the fundamental skills I acquired in my foundation portfolio and am excited to see what new products I can create given what I have now built upon and learnt during the course of my advanced portfolio projects. Additionally, social media has been useful in communicating with my group and accessing information that has helped to inform my decisions. Overall, I can say that I am thrilled with my end products and would happily hold them close to real media products found in today's technology led music industry.

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Below is a link to the audience feedback I received and how I used it to illuminate my work for the print products:

Audience Feedback and Analysis

Below is a short powerpoint presentation of what I learnt from my audience feednack and how it was applied throughout the construction and editing of all 3 of my products:

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2

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

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1

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

The below video demonstrates how my video product (music video for the song "Hype in the Booth" by Isaiah Dreads) conforms and challenges the conventions of music videos and of the grime genre. It is also linked in the presentation above... Enjoy!

Evaluation Question 4- Shane Farrell

Evaluation Question 4  

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

Evaluation Question 3 - Shane Farrell

Evaluation Question 3 

 What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Transcript:

We decided to pick the song ‘Hype in The Booth’ by the 19-year-old grime artist Isaiah Dreads. As a group, we are big fans of the genre and felt this up and coming artist would be the perfect choice to make a music video for. We were able to pair our knowledge of the genre with primary and secondary research to find out what audience we would be targeting in our video. The use of audience feedback to our choices aided the decision making process.

Over the summer, I was lucky enough to see Isaiah perform live at a festival (Reading), the audience at his set gave me the first basic idea of his following, being predominantly 14-24 year-old males. I was able to pair this with our primary research as a group into the artist’s social media pages, looking at followers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and the comments on his YouTube. His following was again, made up predominantly of 14-24 year olds, with a mix in gender this time. The use of these two forms of research were helpful, but the most useful method of research we were able to carry out was a questionnaire to gain specific information from a potential audience.

We devised a set of 6 simple questions to give to a potential viewer of the video:

• What is your age?
• Who is currently your favorite grime artist?
• How often do you attend live grime events?
• What do you expect to see in a grime video?
• Where do you hear about and view grime videos?

After handing out 50 questionnaires, we found out a number of things. Firstly, the predominant age was 14-24, fitting with our previous research. We also found out that ‘Chip’ and ‘Stormzy’ were by far the most popular artists, with 75% of people we asked mentioning them. To build on this we further researched those two artists, looking into their social medias and viewing the norms in their videos. From this research we found ‘Chip’s’ ’96 Bars of Revenge’ video, which we held as a string basis for our final product. The questionnaire also provided us with the fact that the majority of people (70%) believed the visuals were second to the performance and lyrical ability of the artist themselves. This meant that although our focus was on good production value, we also needed our artist to give a good performance for the video to be seen as good. The people we questioned liked simple, hard hitting, performance based videos and this is what we would strive for.

The next form of feedback we received was from our carefully selected focus group. After identifying a target audience of 14-24 year olds, with a majority being male, we mirrored this in a focus group based research session. The point of the focus group was to select a song for us to make a video on, with a choice between ‘Hype in The Booth’ and ‘Fire Flow’ two tracks by Isaiah. We also were able to brainstorm with the group and receive feedback to preliminary ideas on the video. The results of this focus group were very useful. We identified ‘Hype in The Booth’ as the chosen song, due to its creative yet hard hitting nature. The focus group also enabled us to come out with the idea of shooting the video in two main locations, with an estate for the verses and a booth for the hook. It was a very useful form of feedback and was crucial to overall outlook of our video.

The first feedback to a fully encapsulated idea was after our group pitch to fellow media producers. We presented our ideas for the video and received questions after. The problem with this form of feedback was that we were presenting to random people, not to our specific target audience. With this, they suggested their doubts on how the video would be interesting if there was just one artist in it and that it wouldn’t follow any plotline. Though this feedback was vague and arguably naïve, we took it on and employed various methods in the shooting and editing of the video to make it exciting to watch and to hook the viewer. This feedback from them can be compared to the feedback we received from them once the video was finished. They said it was ‘great’ and kept them entertained throughout with the use of fast paced cuts and varied shots.

Further feedback on our video was also very positive, after this time asking our target audience their thoughts, they agreed the video was well constructed. They believed the video was fitting to the grime genre and looked ‘professional’. They commented on the large number of shots and the pace of cuts within the video, believing that’s what kept them hooked. Their feedback also told us that our artists performance in the video was convincing, with aggression and belief tied in at the right times. The feedback to our video was very useful in deciding that it was complete, hours were spent in the production of the video and the feedback confirmed that the finished product was to a good standard.

Audience feedback was also crucial in the development of our print products. We carried out a further questionnaire before getting started. With this we found that simplicity was key, people just wanted the basics on a poster and that a dark color scheme for both was best suited to our genre of grime. We took this feedback and developed drafts for each of our products. We then received feedback on those drafts, being told to change the text layout in the poster and to change the colors and the font in the digipak. Once finished, we then asked for feedback on our final products together. Feedback was very good, saying they crossed over well and provided as good introduction promotional material for Isaiah.

To conclude, research into the target audience for Isaiah Dreads as well as audience feedback was very important in the development of our music video, digipak and magazine poster. The research we attained enabled us to shape a product fit to be fed back on. We were able to in turn create effective final products in all 3 areas. The ongoing process of receiving feedback on developing products enabled us to shape them into meaningful and fitting pieces of the grime genre. I believe the final products are as near to the target audiences expectations as we could’ve made them and the feedback process was crucial in this happening. I was able to merge my own personal opinion and tastes with the tastes of the majority to create 3 effective final products.

Evaluation Question 2 - Shane Farrell

Evaluation Question 2

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

Evaluation Question 1 - Shane Farrell

Evaluation Question 1

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



Links:

Our Video:

Giggs More Ratatin:

Stormzy Shut Up:

Novelist Bigger Man Sound:

Chip 96 Bars of Revenge:

Novelist Endz:

Schoolboy Q Studio:

Double s x Shocka One Take

Evaluation Question Four Part 2

Evaluation Question Four

Evaluation Question Three

Evaluation Question Two

Hype in the booth evaluation two from ToneEgan

Evaluation Question One

Construction: the Editing Process

With regards to the print products I was primarily responsible for editing the magazine cover. For this, I wanted to focus the image in on the artist and create a slightly blurred background to create a dimension between the subject and background. This pushed the artist forward and in the focus of the image. To do this, I created my own gradient filter and the process can be seen bellow. This involved separating the artist from the background and then applying the filter to the back image. By creating a gradient filter you can blur the gradient and therefore make the images on the opposite of the gradient appear closer to the camera lens. Following the application of the filter I changed the contrast, saturation and colour balance of the image, experimenting with shadows, mid tones and highlights.

Here's how I blurred the background using a gradient filter...

The video above is a YouTube video that I found. I used it to learn how to create and apply a gradient focus filter to my image.

The video above demonstrates how I applied the filter and edited the colour balance, contrast and saturation of the image. This is only a short portion of the editing process that carried across a number of days.

Final Cut; Audience Feedback

Rough Cut: Audience Feedback

Digipak: Audience Feedback

Magazine Poster: Audience Feedback

                         

Magazine Advert - Final Print Product

Having finalised the layout and image of our product we decided on (based on our audience feedback), we had to crop and reshape our poster to fit perfectly onto A4 sized paper (210:297 ratio width:height). A4 is the conventional size of most magazine posters and they are more often than not portrait, though some can be landscape. Traditionally, the i-D magazine is A4 and portrait, hence I shaped out poster to fit this convention. Below is our final print product, our magazine poster.

Final draft of our Magazine Poster

DIGIPAK - Final Product

Promotional Magazine Cover (options)

Magazine Poster: Audience Feedback and Analysis

Below is a short powerpoint presentation on our audience feedback for the 5 poster options. This lays out our process of obtaining feedback and generally analyses the feedback we received as it informed our end choice for our final print product. Enjoy!

Magazine Poster: Audience Feedback and Analysis from elliot_1123

Magazine Poster: Option 4 and Option 5

Option 4

Option 5

The above are drafts 4 and 5 of our final print product, the magazine promo cover. Overall, the feedback we received for these drafts was much improved compared to drafts 1 through 3. Audiences responded saying that they looked more balanced out. However, the focus group surveys demonstrated that option 5 was just as successful as option 3 scoring an average of 4 out of 5 whereas option 4 achieved the highest at 4.6. Presumably having the text on the left meant that this was one of the first thing audiences read (as we read from left to right). Moreover, it created more space by covering up less of the image of the artist and so looked 'cleaner' and 'better organised'.

Magazine Poster: Option 2 and Option 3

Following are the 2nd and 3rd magazine cover options. These were scored higher than option 1 in our audience feedback as surveys demonstrated that they looked cleaner and more organised which audiences felt looked more aesthetically pleasing and therefore more eye-catching.

Option 2

Option 3

When asked, audience members argued that both images were an improvement from option 1 however, by organising all the text in the centre it dragged attention away from the artist and those in the focus group said that it covered too much of the image. In comparison to each other, option 3 did slightly better scoring 3.5 out of 5 compared to 4 for option 2. This was explained in our interviews as the focus group agreed that by placing the all the text in the centre the image looked unbalanced and cluttered. As a result of this research I have decided to experiment further with the position of text and the label as this could dramatically improve the overall aesthetic of the poster.

Magazine Poster: Option 1

Below is a copy of the first drafted magazine cover options. Having created my own gradient filter for the background and sharpening the foreground image of the artist, I then decided to experiment with different positioning of text and labels. Having looked at this design after completing it i feel that the position of the i-D logo on the top left corner is perfect. As with genuine i-D magazine covers, the logo is placed on the left. Again, with the photography copyright information and volume information placed on the right I believe that the cover looks clean and organised and very professional. However, following surveys, it became clear that the positioning of text and the Parental Advisory label made the cover appear cluttered and not aesthetically pleasing. As a result we decided that this would not be a good final print product and I will experiment more with the positioning of the information.

Isaiah Dreads - Hype in The Booth (Final Cut)

Isaiah Dreads - Hype in The Booth (Final Cut)

Isaiah Dreads - Hype in The Booth (Rough cut)

Isaiah Dreads - Hype in The Booth (Rough cut)

           

Construction: The Editing Process

Construction: The Editing Process

This video is the sped up last 10 mins of the rough cut. It shows me cutting and changing the timing of clips in order to finish off the edit.

     

Research and Planning: Questionnaire

Research and Planning: Questionnaire For my research into audience, I carried out a simple questionnaire to build a basic profile of my audience and to find out more about what that audience like to see in videos. Consisting of 5 basic open questions, I wanted to keep it short and simple to make it as effective and honest as possible.  What is your age? Who is currently your favourite grime artist? How often do you attend live grime events? What do you expect to see in a grime video? Where do you hear about and view grime videos? After collecting results from 50 questionnaires, here are the results:

Research: Links to Similiar Artists

Links to Similar Artists

Chip:

https://www.youtube.com/user/chiptubeofficial

Bugzy Malone:

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheBugzyMalone

President T:

https://soundcloud.com/presidentt

Yungen:

https://soundcloud.com/yungen_supply-demand

Elf Kid:

https://soundcloud.com/elfkid