Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Throughout the production of the creation of my music video, digipack and magazine advert, I used many different programmes to enable me to complete the process.
The internet was a huge impact, meaning I could research everything I needed to in the click of a button.







Blogger
Using Blogger has meant I have been able to keep all my work up to date and been able to keep note of all the steps I have taken to create my coursework pieces. I was able to post every little piece of research I done, and put all my different ideas down, meaning it was easier for me to make up my mind as to what I wanted. 
Blogger has been helpful in the sense of me having posted my storyboard, it was easy access throughout my filming. I was also able to access my filming schedule, equipment list etc. quick and easy.

Final Cut Express

All of my music video was uploaded and edited using a programme called Final Cut Express. It is easy to use, being able to make cuts, changes and adjustments where they were needed. From using Final Cut for my first year coursework, I had a vast amount of knowledge of how to use the program.
Also with Final Cut Express, we were given a lip-syncing tutorial, which taught us all the basics on how to match the music with the video. This made everything a lot easier.




Photoshop

Photoshop was one media technology which had to be taught to me, although it is a very useful tool, there are a lot of steps to do to create the perfect piece.
I used Photoshop to create my four images to fit together to create the digipack and I also used it to create my magazine poster.
Photoshop enabled me to make my average looking pictures stand out and seem like they were professionally done. This made everything a lot easier for me.




Dafont.com

Da font is a website containing thousands of weird and wonderful fonts. You can choose whichever font you like, download it and use within a matter of seconds, it's that easy!
The writing on my poster is from the da font website and I also used fonts from there on my digipack.
It creates a more unique effect as you are not stuck with a limited amount of fonts that are just from Photoshop.







Equipment
The equipment I used to accomplish my filming were:
A cannon digital camera
A micro SD card
A tripod
I already had knowledge of using these three items so filming was an easy task for me.
Through being assigned my own equipment, I was able to get a variety of different shots over many locations. Using the tripod meant I could put the camera where I was unable to access myself, and it would always be a steady shot.

Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Music Video

Digipack

Poster

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

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

My music video is narrative based. It includes a well structured easy to follow story line which the audience can understand. Some performance in the music video is a convention of narrative based videos, so in my music video, there are shots of the artist playing the guitar and singing into the camera.

For my digipak I followed the conventions of a typical first time album release. I included three out of four images of the artist. This fits the needs and demands of the record label as they want the artists image to be recognised and identified as easily as possible by the targeted audience.
As I used the song Cereal for my music video, I thought it was acceptable to use an image of cereal faded into the CD to make the album more recognisable to the audience.
I used bright and bold colours on the front cover as it stands out.
The images I used of the artists contrast but work well. It shows the artist has a mixture of being a cheeky class joker as well as having a more sensible side, but still knowing how to have fun. There is an image of the artist playing the guitar, which fits in with the typical conventions of a guitar based song. On the front cover there is a chalk board used as the background which gives off the school boy class joker look, reflecting on the targeted audience. 'Available on iTunes' is included on the back cover where the list of the songs are so the audience know that the music is popular and able to be downloaded on a well known simple site.

On my magazine advert I have included many typical conventions. There is a clear, large image of the artist which becomes memorable for the audience and they will always remember it because it is such a distinctive smile and also used on the digipak.
It has the artists named "Morrison Marr" in clear bold writing across the page. As I have used an image of a chalkboard as the background, the font I used for the artist's name was chalk. This adds to the school boy look which I had created on the front cover of the digipack.
The name of the album "Comedy Show" is in bold letters under the name of the artist, which is then followed by "Includes the hit single Cereal" which is the song I used for my music video. This is constantly reminding the audience certain aspects of the video and digipak. The release date is then followed after, in a larger font, so the audience know when they are able to buy the album.
I included a five star rating from a well known radio station "BBC Radio 1" as well as a comment from them. As the targeted audience for my artist also listen to this radio station, I thought it would be a good idea, meaning they will listen to what the radio will say based on their judgement.
As well as including "Available on iTunes" again like on the digipack so the audience are yet again reminded they are able to buy the music online, I have also included "Virgin Records" so the audience can know that it is a big, well known music company producing the music.

Digipack Analysis

Final Poster

Advert Planning

 

 iTunes is a well known site for people to download music on so I would like my artist's music to be recognised on there.

This is the font I want used on my advert. I downloaded it from dafont.com. I think it has a chalk effect to it, and this reflects the background being a chalk board.

I want BBC Radio 1 to be the ones who give a five star rating of my artist's album. They are a popular music radio station so people are likely to listen to their ratings.

Advert sketches

My advert has to include:
Artist name
Picture of the artist
A rating from a famous company
A release date
A picture of my digipack
A production company
Songs included

Advert analysis

Final Net

Photoshop Tutioral

Layers - each picture/text has its own layer
Free Transform - changing sizing
Magic wand — cutting things out — quick selection
Text - Create wrapped text

Primary Research

Digipak Research

Target Audience Profile

Cereal
Blink 182
Sum 41
Green Day
Bowling For Soup
Offspring
All American Rejects
New Found Glory

Fall Out Boy

Panic at the Disco!

All Time Low

This is Tom, he is 16 years old. His favourite bands are Blink 182, Sum 41 and Bowling for Soup. His favourite item of clothing is hid Bowler hat and a checkered shirt. On the weekends he goes skate boarding and he plays the lead guitar in his rock band. He loves writing songs which have a rock but comical aspect to them as he likes his songs to be unique. In the future he hopes to get a sleeve tattoo

Risk Assesment

What is a risk assessment?

When filming, especially in the music industry - risk assessments are very important to ensure that if an accident occurs - you would have previously assessed the risk and tried your best to prevent it.

Storyboard

Filming locations

Editing

These are various images of my editing process on Final Cut Express

Equipment List

Tripod
Canon digital video recorder 
Micro SD card

Filming Schedule