Salute Music Video

Print Artifacts

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 2

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

For the A2 Media coursework, we created print artefacts along with a main production. Our main production, the music video, required certain types of artefacts. These being; a digipack (CD Case) and an advertising poster. The digipack was a trifold holding several images related to the music video itself. We used some shots from the video but also took some extra ones. We believe that the end product of the digipack will be effective in terms of advertising the music video. It held all of the key information that is required of a CD case and what is needed to advertise a product in an effective manner.

 

Also, the poster works effectively as a form of advertisement for the music video as it gives the target audience a taste of what the product will be like. For example, on the poster we have reviews from well know music companies that say what they thought of the music video which will encourage people to buy it. It also has a star rating on it inferring the level of quality. This is important to have when advertising a product as the audience can be easily persuaded by other people’s opinions. We also have the price on the poster as the audience will not buy it without knowing how much they are paying.

 Both the main product and ancillary texts compliment each other well. This is because we have kept the same theme throughout both of them. By this I mean the same type of font, colour, etc. We believe this worked effectively as by keeping certain features the same in the main product and the ancillary texts, we are installing our product into the target audiences mind as they will begin to recognise the type of fonts and colours we are using and associate it with what we have created. We used bright colours for both the main product and the ancillary texts as we want to present them both in a positive way and to catch the audience’s eye. The colour we used was yellow, our thinking behind this was to put the text across an image in the sky, relating it to the sun leading to a happier and more positive interpretation of the music video.

On the other hand, we would have liked to have taken more still images using the DSLR camera for the print artefacts. The reason being that we could have higher quality images and be freer with type of shots we wanted to use. Another improvement we would have liked to have done is created a more in depth edit of the photo, unfortunately this could not be done due to time constraints. This would be something we would like to improve on if this project was ever re-created. To improve our time management we could create an in depth plan of when certain tasks need to be completed by to inject more of a structure into the project.

However, the music video is effective for portraying the message we wanted to be within the video. The message was woman empowerment. This message came across effectively as we added in clips at the start which include powerful females throughout history such as Margret Thatcher and Malala Yousifaiz. The print artefacts also worked as we had an image of a woman posing in a similar way to the World War poster, asking women to join. We also had other hidden symbolism such as the globe with the female logo drawn over it. This was to show that woman have power and rights all over the world no matter where their origin is.

Overall, I believe that our main product and the ancillary texts both have aspects that are effective but there are a few things that could have been improved if time was not an issue. Both sides compliment each other well and work effectively in advertising our product.

Question 3 Audience Feedback

Question 4 Evaluation.

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

To make sure we are successful in our project we used a variety of technology to ensure we had an outcome of high quality. We used a range of hardware and software to help create our aspired outcome. To create our outcome we used a range of technology such as a camera, Photoshop, green screen, IMovie, Pic Monkey and storyboard that. All of the above helped us create a successful media production.

To film our main production we used a DSLR Canon camera, this made our production, a music video, and have a higher quality, especially when comparing it with the quality of a digital camera. By using this camera we were able to also take effective images to use towards our ancillary texts in which we were making a CD cover and a promotional poster. This gave us an advantage as it meant we could take images in the locations we had filmed in. Additionally this made our images clear and sharp. By using a DSLR camera we could adjust certain setting on the camera to create effective images such as shutter speed and aperture. For example we used the shutter speed setting on the camera to take the background image of our cd front cover.

Once we had taken our images we manipulated them on Adobe Photoshop CS5, this therefore meant we could create unique images for our CD case. We used a layer blend tool to blend two images together this then we inserted into Pic Monkey to add the text and darken the edges of the product. We repeated this process for the back cover and inside of our CD cover.

We used https://www.picmonkey.com/ to add the text to our acillanary texts. We decided to use Pic Monkey because they had a wider range of fonts, some which realted to the military theme which we have used on our print artifacts. We also changed the colour of the text to a choice which fitted the theme.

To edit our production we used IMovie, we used this because it was simple to use but effective. It has a range of transitions which helped us create our wanted outcome. We used transitions such as overlay to help blend the shots together to avoid the excessive use of jump cuts. Although we used transitions such as fade and overlay we did cut our video clips down, and then put them into slow motion. This was featured at the beginning of our music video. We added an effect throughout the music video which was featured in the scene in the field. This added to the effect of having a military atmosphere which has helped support the meaning of our production; women empowerment.

Over each of the shots we have used a filter to help darken the footage. This is so the colours such as green, a military colour, is more prominent. This helped support the atmosphere and connotations of our music video. This ‘dusk’ theme is held throughout our media coursework.

To film the first question of the evaluation we used a green screen. This was used so we could add clips to the background from our music video to discuss and evaluate. By doing this we used two DSLR to film, as we aimed for this to appear like a press interview. We used studio lighting to ensure there was no dark shadows meaning it would be easier to edit.

Overall we used a wide range of technology to help construct our music video. We used media technologies to help with the research, planning and to produce our final production.

Digi Pack Final Cover.

Class Feed Back Sheet- Overall Summary.

A2 Media Advanced Portfolio Feed Back Sheet:

To gather feedback we presented our production to our Media class. By giving them feedback sheets we were able to gather our pros and cons of our overall production. The questions we asked covered following the codes and conventions, our research and planning on our blogs, and how well it refers to the technical aspects.

Question one- How would you rate the success of the production in terms of the following codes and conventions of a music video, a documentary or a short film?

From the results of this question people rated and assessed our production as excellent (on average).  We presented our blogs to the class which they assessed to see how well we planned our production and if we had done further research. The third question followed by asking how well the production was planned and thought about. People have said our production was of ‘High Imagination & Creative Flair’. On average people assessed our blogs as good to excellent, this meaning we had followed the guidelines and completed any extra tasks to help support our overall project.

We then ask the class on how the production could be improved. The feedback we had received back is that the audio file could be changed as it had a very loud and distinctive bass. A selection of people also stated part of the lip syncing wasn’t in sync of the song, this was due to how we exported it, so we went back and changed the audio file, still being aware of copy right laws and exported the new and final copy.

The feedback sheet was extremely helpful as it gave us an idea of what could be improved and what in the production needed improvement. Overall from the feedback we had positive feedback, and this has also helped with the evaluation of our production. 

First cut

This is the first draft of our music video. The orange represents the gaps we have to fill.

Digi Pack.

The image to the right is the first cut of our back cover of our album. When we got our feedback, there were many issues, there weren't enough songs, as a normal album ranges from 8-12 songs, the text was hard to see, and there was an incorrect spelling made. We discussed in our group about the idea of a new colour theme, something that would stand out and be bold to the audience. After many attempts with other colours we decided yellow appeared the best. Below is our second cut of our back cover. We used yellow text as it is contrasting to the background of the cover. We also added other well known songs by the artist and corrected the error in spelling. Once we decided that

 were satisfied with the text, font colour and size we needed to add in adjustments such as a barcode and the small print found on CD's.

Below is our final cut of the back cover of our CD. We added in small print, stating information about the producing company and we added a barcode and logo of the company that produce Little Mix's music.

 This image was used as an extra panel, it represents the message of our music video. The image is a screen shot of a frame in our music video. We edited it to have a similar effect to the other panels.









 This is the front cover of our CD. We combined many images together which all represent feminism. On the hands of the models we have drawn on the female logo. In each image the subject is covering their mouth (how women in the past have been deprived from freedom of speech), their ears (how women shouldn't be heard in society) and eyes (how the identity of women is lost through the gender stereotypes). We have then used an overlay tool to blend all the images together.

Editing our Salute Digi Pack

 

This video shows the process of the editing which we used to create the Digi Pack.

Print Advertisment process

We decided to use a screen shot from our production as a background for our poster. We decided to use an establishing shot and images of our two featured artists in the production. We considered the shots as we wanted the poster to also relate and support the overall message and theme from our final production. By taking all the images on the same day we didn't need to be concerned about lighting or the hue of the different images, this naturally made editing easier. After we used an overlay tool, we considered how to present the brand artist. We decided to use inspiration from the 'Red Arrows' so we used planes and a cloud effect to edit this. In addition to this to write 'Salute' we decided to use a rubber stamp font as this links to importance and the military. After we finished our first cut we collected our feedback and made the necessary changes to our poster. One of the criticisms was the layout of our text and information, this we then adjusted and improved.

 Our first cut had faults such as the text covering the head of the image and the fact we had a lot of empty space. To improve this we added quotes about the success of the band and star ratings and more additional information which would be seen on a promotional poster advertising a album.

Our final cut presents how we filled the spaces from our first cut, it also shows that we responded to our feed back.