Evaluation - Question 4

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

• As mentioned in detail on a previous blog post, we used Final Cut Pro as opposed to iMovie for this year's coursework. This new media technology fit in seamlessly with what we were trying to achieve. This was used in the construction and also the planning stages of our video. We used it to edit our movie, and to create our plan visually, our plan being the animatic. Final Cut Pro was overall a better model than iMovie, as it was more detailed when it came to editing colour, and without it we wouldn't have been able to create our fast-paced edit towards the end.
  
• Final Cut Pro was however not without its problems. By having so many options there were many aspects we struggled to find, such as the correct editing effect. But I guess its better to have too many options than not enough! Lip syncing was also a difficult thing to achieve with the group re-aligning clips 2 or 3 times to make it perfect, but we would also have faced this problem with iMovie, its just an inevitability of the editing process.

• 
  Used to show all of the stages stated in the question was Blogger. Blogger has been an extremely useful tool for us, compared with 'Moodle' (Weston College's Virtual Learning Centre) from last year.
• With Blogger, we could update all the stages of our coursework as and when they happened, and it's easily accessible both at home and at college.
• Blogger is alot more technical than Moodle, it enabled us to upload images, embed videos from YouTube and link to our tutor's (and consequently eachother's) blogs easily. It's a very convienient website and it worked very well for myself.
  
• Blogger also made it easy to access our previous blogs, so we could look back over what we've done with ease.

• Adobe Photoshop was a new edition to coursework this year. Although we didn't use it in our AS year, all of us had some varying degrees of experience with Photoshop, so we all knew what we were doing. This was mainly used in the construction stage, for the ancillary texts; the magazine advert and the DigiPak. The photoshop I was used to was Adobe Photoshop cs2, and I thought that was brilliant, but if I thought cs2 was brilliant, cs4 was so much better. It gave us the ability to enhance any image and it had so many more options.
  
• Overall, I was extremely happy with Photoshop and the end product it gave us via editing colours, lighting and the contrast.
  
• Photoshop also has a text feature, with a lot of fonts and this was good for variety.
  

Evaluation - Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

• Overall, the audience feedback was positive, the majority of people understood it was intended to be a comedy video and they got the jist of our representation of Cosmo. We initially got feedback from one of Michelle's AS group's, who generally really enjoyed it and found it humorous, with comments ranging from "Visual fits well with the song" and "Could tell it was a music video". As nice as the comments were, there was no criticisms, constructive or otherwise so we decided to show a wider audience.
  
• The BTEC Media group were much more analytical and in some cases they really did lay into our work for all the minor issues, which is what we wanted so I guess we can't complain! This is a shortlist of the criticisms received:
  - The lighting in the interior shots wasn't very good
  - Locations could have been linked more/more clearly
  - Lip syncing was out of time in one of the scenes
  - Shop signs in the background were irrelevant and eye-catching
  - People walking in the background of shots were an unnecessary distraction
• In response to this, we tried to improve our video. We re-edited the clip with the lip syncing issue, and we filmed more narrative and locations to make it more aesthetically pleasing. We decided not to re-film the interior shots, as the lighting would always be a issue, so we instead reduced the number used.
• The majority of the audience reacted exactly how we'd hoped - with laughter. This was our main intent and it seemed mission accomplished, even those outside of our target audience (over 21's) found the video to be funny.
  
  

Evaluation - Question 2

How effective is the combination between your main product and ancillary texts?

• I feel the combination between our main product and ancillary texts is very strong. You can tell that they are related and they both do a fantastic job of promoting the Cosmo image we wanted to represent. The themes and images used are similar, both include levels of cartoonish child-like joy, whether realistic cartoon (the video) or animated cartoon (the DigiPak). Although trying to present Cosmo as a fun-loving individual, the professional-style also suggests that he is serious about progressing in the music industry also.
• We aimed to have a colour scheme in our DigiPak, and also to make it pretty basic yet interesting and eye-catching. The fonts used also sum up the Cosmo representation from the video as well as his MySpace page.
  
• To make it better, we could have done the photoshoot with Luke when we were filming the video, so he would have a consistent appearance throughout, as well as similar items of clothing. In the video he had an eccentric appearance whereas in the DigiPak he looks more like your every-day Joe. However I view this as a positive, as it shows he's serious about the digipak.

Final edit of Cosmo Jarvis' Mel's Song

Evaluation - Question 1

In what way does your media product use, develop and challenge the forms and conventions of real media texts?

Forms and conventions used:

We used Andrew Goodwin's framework in sticking with the key features he listed, so our video could be distinguished as a music video. His theory comes from his book on the rise of MTV, 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' (1992). Although 17 years is a long time ago in terms of music video, these features are still commonly seen in almost all music videos, so sticking to these guidelines was a good idea. The guidelines he used include:

• There should be a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals (with visuals either illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics) - This guideline is clearly met in our music video, for example during the lyrics 'so come back to my room and we can watch a movie, and my passion for you will go right straight through me' the visuals on screen are Cosmo and Mel sitting on a sofa staring at the tv, signifying they are watching a movie. In this segment, the visuals illustrate the lyrics.

• There should be a relationship between the music and the visuals (again visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the music) - Our video doesn't have too much in terms of music and visuals, its a very lyric based music video. Correlations between the music and the visuals usually comes in videos of rock bands, as the focus is also on the instrumentals, the skills of the guitarists/drummers for example. Since the portrayal of Cosmo Jarvis is as a solo artist, there is nothing but a comedy use of instruments, where he plays the 'acoustic bridge' whilst sat on the toilet. This convention as mentioned is more suited to bands with instruments, so although there is one glimmer of this in our video, it isn't a necessity for our video.

• Particular music genres may have their own music video style and iconography (such as live stage performance in heavy rock) - Cosmo Jarvis' genre of music is alternative. However, the alternative genre doesn't have its own music video style and iconography, so we had free creative reign to do what we wanted with our video, and that was great. Our video style had some similar shots to 'Bittersweet Symphony' by The Verve, as mentioned earlier in the blog, and this band is also a little alternative, although you could also argue they are an indie act.

• There will be a demand on the part of the record company for a lot of close-ups of the main artist or vocalist. - This requirement was met, with many close-ups of Cosmo. We also did this because it would be his first released song hypothetically, so it was important for the viewers to see what he looked like, so they could try and identify with him.

These are the conventions we use that stick to the Goodwin theory. A much followed theory, we decided to try and stick to the main principles.

In terms of developing ideas we looked at the video features included in the aforementioned 'Bittersweet Symphony' and also Taio Cruz's 'Come On Girl'. Mentioned frequently previously on the blog we wanted to further develop the idea of being followed walking down the street and other locations, not just one location whilst walking like the two mentioned music videos.

We also worked to develop Cosmo Jarvis' video style. His editing is basic and fairly amateurish, like our own, however he does show some skills such as colour adjustments and split screening. We thought we'd go a step further and go one level ahead, as shown with our very quick edit which was rhythmic (in time with the music).

Digipak Magazine advert

The final ancillary task was to make a magazine advert for our designed Digipak. After some research of magazine adverts for digipak's done in class (which can't be scanned onto the computer sadly, but include Jay-Z's Blueprint, Jamie T's album, Mark Knopfler's Get Lucky and The Beatles digipak) , we finished with this as our final magazine advert design:

This poster includes a blurb of information, such as a release date, track list, website and an image of the Digipak, as well as the production company's logo, 'Purple Tortoise'. The image we used is the one for the 3rd panel (the CD-covered one), as this is the most simple and effective one, it catches the eye without being too 'in your face', the image shows Cosmo off, and overall the group are very pleased with it, as it looks professional and we feel it would not look out of place in a magazine whatsoever.

DigiPak Final Design

We have now completed our DigiPak. This was completed during the last few lessons of the year and overall we are very pleased with the final product! Firstly we drew a draft layout of the DigiPak set-up, so we knew how to go about our frames. This is the design:After that we delegated into two small teams to do two panels each, and then look over eachothers to see if we all agreed and see if there were any improvements that could be made. So Elliot and Heidi worked on the front panel and the panel the CD would cover, and Jordan and myself began work on the back panel and the other inside panel. Here is panel one, done by Elliot and Heidi:^ This is the first draft of panel one. We did like this panel however after using a second photo to compare and contrast, we went with the second picture and thus our front panel ended up being:We changed the position of Cosmo from the left hand side to the right, and also used a photo while still different and summing up the 'Cosmo' attitude, isn't as peculiar as a wink, as you don't see many winks on front covers of CDs! We felt it was very important to include his face on the front panel, as he isn't a well known artist so the CD wouldn't sell itself, whereas if it was someone known universally, like Jay-Z with the Blueprint, his face wouldn't be necessary.

The next panel was started by Jordan and myself. This is the original photo we modified:

In this picture, I felt the lights were positioned like boxing gloves, so we decided we would colour them in red. And Cosmo is infamous for his sketches (as seen on his MySpace), so we decided that in this panel we would include some sketches, drawn by Heidi. We made the background white so it was like paper (from a sketchbook) to make it look more free. So this is our final result for the inside panel:

The next panel was done by Elliot and Heidi. This one will be covered by the CD inside the Digipak, so it was the least important to the eye we felt, however it had to keep the general tone of the Digipak. This is the original photo to be edited:
In terms of editing, all we did was brighten up and sharpen the image, to keep in tone with the brightness of the other inside panel, which contrast from the front and back panel. This is the final result of the inside CD-covered panel:

Now onto the backcover panel modified by Jordan and myself. This was designed with the idea of brown/dark brown in mind as the front cover and the back cover are usually the same colour, and we've kept in tone with these conventions. This is the original photo used for the back panel: For the back cover, we went for a standout, nightclub looking design. We did a neon-inspired outline of his shadow and the lights, to make it different from the front cover. The pose sums up the Cosmo attitude and feeling, and we are really pleased with the end result. We also included the 'Purple Tortoise' logo to stick with the conventions of the production company being at the bottom of the CD, and a tracklist is surrounding the 'blanker' spaces around his body. This is our back panel for the Cosmo Jarvis digipak:Going back to the original outline, this is what our final digipak would look like, and this is the image that will feature in our magazine advert: