Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

What Have you learned from audience feedback?

Audience feedback has allowed me to adapt both my digipack, and music video to my audience. I've used feedback from a variety of websites, personnel, such as comments sections of Facebook.  These allowed me to receive quick and wide spread feedback from a wide variety of potential audience ages. Even some that would not usually choose to watch/listen to the music video by choice simply because of the connections Facebook allows you t make, I can have anyone see my post which opens up the feedback level/quality.

Audience feedback has been of importance as it has enabled me to make my products more popular due to me changing areas of my products that my audience disliked. Due to this, my products are much more credible to my audiences as they know I have listened and tried to connect to their aesthetic side. I have ignored some ideas due to negative  feedback and that the product is MINE, not my audiences.

An example of this being my cinematography on my original ancillary task drafts during which, my audience stated their dislike for the blur effect; I then altered the entire imagery editing on my ancillary tasks in order to better suit my audience's preferences to benefit my self and have amore popular audience culture.

 I did use questionnaires to help me to improve my work. I felt this could help me gain quantity of feedback which I can remember rather than face to face, however, I was faced with some controversial ideas, where the feedback wasn't given seriously, for  the production of a successful media film it is important to focus on the feedback given to me by primary audience members. I also constructed online surveys and questionnaires. However I unfortunately, was prevented sharing this, as there were errors, too which I am still struggling to surpass.

My audience had very limited access to my work until finalised, it remained only on my blog, and I would often show it sometimes to passer-by's in our school IT room. I didn't post  too many images/screenshots and videos to social media, simply because I would ask my audience at the time for feedback, improvise on their feedback and add the changes, audience for me this year, stupidly, was something I did more with in person than online such like my blog, something I need to overcome in the future.

I feel however I have opened up a wide audience base by choosing male music from a male game, the most famous in the game, and a genre/narrative which would particularly appeal to the females, simply due tot the aesthetic capability of some of my cinematography. I have shared this information, but rarely backed it up, to see how these choices affected these range of audiences.

Honestly I haven't learnt too much from audience feedback, bar that I really need to be more with it, in terms of evidence. I have been way more with my audience in person than online, and media for me this year has been really tough to fully pursue and focus given other really important aspects for me, which personally is a huge regret, as media is very important for me, particularly the audience, as I need skills with audience, particularly online if I am to pursue media at the next level

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the main combination of your media product and ancillary tasks? by Aidan Walker

Evaluation Question 1

The very clothing I also implemented on my protagonist as a convention itself, fitting remotely well with the indie genre. Having made an post on the decisions why I chose set outfitting.

It is also very complementary of my protagonist and helps her stand out in frame, with he contrast of her jacket and hair colour. For me not only does this help the indie mise en scene, but it makes my character look very effective on frame, whilst relaying the conventions of indie genre clothing.

As a result, conventions have been crucial to the creation of my product, they are the backbone and evidence of knowledge in my course, there are plenty of justifiable things of I have done with my knowledge of conventions, most notable is my lack of use of tripods to create an intended camera shake, so that the film seems more dreamy like and first person. Another unconventional aspect as the film is shot from a first person aspect in some frames that aren't establishing shots. My understanding and ability to adapt, or subvert conventions for me has been crucial and allowed me to justify decisions and create post modern text where the conventions are blurred, due to sharing of kinds of indie genre (pop and rock) and the postmodern influence where I contest conventional ideas/theories and apply new ideas into my media which I categorise as post modern as it has some kind of feminism in the use of a female protagonist, and feminism is a post modern convention I have adapted.

Evaluation questions

Final Video

This is my final product, I'm not as happy as I can be about it, however this has been resolved, unfortunately the quality isn't as good as once seen whilst editing however this is it.

Final Digipak

Final Music Advert

Theorists applied

In the production of my piece I have made it essential to follow or merely subvert these peoples theories to abstain full potential on my piece.

Stuart Hall is responsible for the reception theory
Stuart Hall believes the audience interprets the text in different ways based on their background and philosophy. They either Adhere to the encoded text, challenge or subvert. I intentionally planned this, by using an unconventional female character as my main character, for the post modern aspect of my video, and this will play a big part on my audience, with research mainly females agreed with this, there were some males, but males typically challenged the idea

Jean Baudrillard is the theory of postmodernism and hyper reality
This is quite simple for me, I merely wanted a post modern text, and I have simply used ideas that are unconventional and applied them to my piece to fit this, I haven't used any pastiche, but merely the indie genre, I have used new representation of characters, only occurring in post modern texts, post modern is the idea that you challenge modernist ideas/conventions.

Roland Barthes beholds the semiotics theory
Signs are important, they allow the audience to denote ideas based on what is coded in front of them, I have placed slight enigmas in how I have composed my text shots, and how I have portrayed my protagonist/archetype and the order in which my shots are edited, in an illustrative way, to link lyrics to visual ONLY in some instances.
The song choice itself, is a slight semiotic/enigma.

Laura Mulvey boasts the male gaze theory.
Laura, merely believes women are meant to be gawked at in the media, hence the "male gaze" that they are presented sexually, in this case I have subverted her idea, and not portrayed her in the way she believes, this for me is new, as it challenges modernist ideas, and boost confidence for the female image, a slight type of feminism - societal group in this post modern culture.

Ancillary draft Feedback

After showing my ancillary to some of my audience, here is the feedback I recieved

Positive:

• The images contrast so well
• The colour is very clever looks very surreal (like a dream)
• For a first attempt this looks strong, the boldness of the white collabs well with the shades of purple
• Glad you took this over your original draft, far more realistic and will work well with your final piece
• The main imagery, and the use of it in all 3 final products is very fascinating

This feedback is helpful for me, yes it may only be positive, but it shows how there are audience who do in fact appreciate my ideas and creativity to five me the last stretch of confidence to create a strong bond between the final products.

Favourite shots from filming

Here are some images/film from when I went filming, and I will explain as to why they are my favourite or why I think they make work.

This first one I particularly like due to the on going colour use in the frame. The only thing I don't like is how that the clip is so short, however i could not help this as the building is limited to the rotation of its colours. Because it is so short, I am able to recycle the clip and use it again for the chorus, which will be very beneficial for my use in the production of my final piece.

This image is the backbone of of my ancillaries, the rule of thirds works strongly, and it allows for my viewing audience to decode that the female in shot is my archetype. The lighting of the frame is very well illustrated and cancels out the poor natural lighting which is a plus. Another thing about this image is that the lighting and framing defines the whole of my music video as the shots are well lit and consist of the harbour lights. What also made me choose this photo is that when having left it on screen, people share their opinions and agree is a well crafted piece of cinematography.

I particularly like this image due to the composition, the symmetry is very strong and the blur adds a contrasting effect which works with the symmetry. The picture for me was that good I considered using it for my poster, however in the end I decided against this as there is little that is given away by the image. The illuminous lighting of the poles enhance the imagery to create a well established shot. However there is little going on, which slightly reduces the validity for me, however it is still a very strong shot. 

Feedback on Ancillaries

These are my draft ancillary tasks.

• A music poster
• A digipak case

After reviewing with peers and supervisors, it has been agreed that the imagery and contents of both ancillaries are brilliant, but obviously with some minor tweaks to improve. I am very confident with how these two both went considering I have only recently learnt how to use photoshop.

 This is my music poster, there is a nice range of colours, and the violet, iris and white all combine quite well. Learning a range of skills, I was able to adapt the text and imagery to make it stand out more, it fits in well with the video, and really gives a glimpse of what is to come in the video, which is the intention of posters. There are some small tweaks I have been asked of, which are to brighten some of the darker text, and make sure I only have a range of two texts max. People said they were fans of how I have tried to keep the font that the band use for themselves in actual videos/advertisements, and they said the boldness of the title really works with what I am trying to create.

My digipak was the least favourable of the two, but that doesn't mean my audience don't like it. They love the use of symmetry, however feel there is little relation to my poster, due to the texts I have used. The fact I have used the same image on both ancillaries went down well, as people said its a fantastic image to use. I did have the image blurred, however people liked the concept, but felt the image was better un blurred.

All these adaptations I can make have helped the course of my ancillaires so I can produce top quality work which all combines and something eye catching that my audience will want to watch. Thanks to newly learnt skills, I am able to add new techniques unlike last year.

First film draft

Here is a short preview of my media opening sequence

I have had some audience look at it in a post to come soon. However I am fairly confident in this piece. The opening looks good, the colours work and I can already tell that since last year I have gone from novice to practitioner. My editing skills have really improved and I am more creative in my piece. You will notice that some of my shots are rocky, but this is all intentional, risky but my creative idea. As explained in my conventions post. I feel this piece is quite aesthetic and there is plenty more potential to come, and I hope I can succeed this quality of work and enhance my skills further to really make it feel like a music video, not a student film.

This first draft allows me to obtain audience feedback so far, see how they think it should be etc, examine their expectations and use their feedback to adapt my skills and improve my work.

Filming!

This last year, I went into to Torquay to practise filming and shot taking

Digipak draft

This is the draft of my digipak, I feel it looks very good, there are some questionable aspects like the title, but for me it is very strong and fits with my poster and film very well thus far.

Pinterest Board Ideas

For some reason the Pinterest link doesn't work, however this was my mood board for gathering ideas of acceptable shots that I can use in my sequence. I essentially searched ideas, like relations, indie or even beaches, to assume the kinds of shots I will need to be using, as you can see some of the shots are very aesthetic and work well.

What I can learn by doing a moodboard is how to generalise my piece to my audience, it also allows me to gather a range of imagery to inspire my piece.

Risk assessment

Here is my media risk assessment, it is very short, however after full analysis, there aren't many more risks than the ones presented.

What I can learn by doing a risk assessment are the precautions you need to take in order to film your piece, as if you don't assess the risks and become more cautious when on filming you can be fully more exposed to the risks present.

Filming progress so far

Here are just some of the clips I have obtained thus far, I feel my piece is coming on very well, there have been some minor blips since half term, where filming has been virtually impossible. However this has been overcome and I am now back on track, there are some minor lips I need to film before my piece is complete, here are just some, and explained why they're the way they are.

This is an over the shoulder tracking shot, I thought this would look effective given the mise-en-scene of the imagery, the rule of thirds is applied strong, and it is intended to stimulate a relationship where the guy is in awe, and merely follows his love. The camera is intentionally shaky as I'm trying to stimulate a dream which I can achieve due to post-modern media.

This shot is merely an establishing shot. The lighting of the bridge makes it look very strong and a well structured frame. The bridge its self is a low key signifier as it is meant to signify new horizons or merely the phrase "build a bridge and get over it" hence applying to the "relationship" present in the text. To suggest there has been a confusion in the pairing, but is well hidden due to the dream aspect of the text. What I like is how its a bridge so the enigma may slide under audience radars, however it is a very aesthetic shot of which I think works very well.

What I an learn by talking about some of my shots, is how and why I have elected to use them. Explaining them allows me to justify my choices rather than encoding them straight to my audience, so they have a chance to see why set shots where chose as a pose to others. 

NEW Costume for archetype

Mise-en-scene is an important convention in indie songs, and it is important my female archetype follows this, and so for that I have chosen to dress her in indie clothes which people will know signify. As most commonly these kinds of clothes are worn by indie folk.

The red jumper is a key signifier in its self, obviously red is a signifier of love or romance, and thats just what I am trying to achieve here, the jacket is perfect as not only is it a small signifier to represent an aspect of the video, it also "indie fies" my character, suiting the genre perfectly.

The choice of black allows the audiences eyes to remain on my character and allow the red jacket to fully shine. Black also means the male gaze is denied due  to the lighting of the majority of shots, therefore challenge the conventions of Laura Mulvey, I chose to represent my character like this, as I feel it helps her fit in the genre and doesn't make her a victim of the male gaze.

What I can learn by sharing my characters costume and explaining it, is how to justify al decisions I make in my course, and how the mise-en-scene plays part in establishing a creative text, and I feel my creative mind allows me to select the costume well and even challenge theories or conventions in my decisions.