Navigation to Webpage

My Webpage is on a CD-Rom which is attached to my portfolio. To access it first click on the folder called 'City Lightz Website - By Deepak'. After clicking on this folder it leads you to another folder, click on the 'Webpage' folder, then finally there is a document called 'about us', which is the website I have created.

Evaluation!

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

I think that my product uses the forms and conventions of real media products in many ways which I will discuss by going through each of them and describing where the product uses, develops or challenges the conventions. Web Page When creating my web page I wanted to create something that was recognisable by the audience so that they could instantly tell it was a website for a music band. I researched a couple of different bands sites but the design that really caught my eye was the design for the kings of leon web page. As you can see below it is a very basic website but probably one of the most effective. I decided to include the images of my music band in the same format as the kings of leon. The other things that I liked about the kings of leon website how they had the most important information as soon as you accessed the site and it was right in front of you, it was the information that the fans would want to see instantly. I also decided to implement a news feed in my website as I thought it was very informative and what the audience would want to see.

I also looked at the website for the band Blink 182, I thought this was a good website as it looked professional and of a high standard. I liked the way that all of the elements were separated, for example, the blink news, watch blink TV and the sign up section. (Website accessed March 2011). I tried to use this effect on the website when I was designing it as I thought it was important to make it easy for the audience to be able to tell apart what’s what.

CD Digipack
When making the CD digipack we looked at similar artists CD covers and decided to implement their designs and styles therefore aligning with the codes and conventions of the real media products. We decided to use cut out paper to make the effect that is similar to the one of the blink 182 single cover I have linked below. One thing that I didn’t like about the cover below is that it was a little too basic and I felt it was lacking more colour and images, so I decided to add more images and colour to the digipack I was creating. Along with the kings of leon cover, I felt it too was lacking detail and could have been improved with more images, also I didn’t think the colours were that eye catching and we were aiming to make a product that would stop people and attract their attention.

When making the digipack we designed the front and back cover of the CD and then also made a lyrics insert which would be put inside of the CD cover alongside the actual CD. We thought this a good as it would mean customers are getting that little bit more for their money rather than simply the CD.

Promotional Poster

My poster which I created, which was made to advertise the music video went through slot of changes, as we couldn’t decide what the best poster was but after getting audience feedback we decided to keep it nice and simple. We basically put our CD digipack front cover as the background picture of our poster. We did this because then customers would see it was for our music video and not get confused about whose music video it was for. As you can see the kings of leon poster and album cover colours match this created a sort of branding system where the audience can recognise the artist simply by glancing at the product.

The blink 182 poster you can see above is not the same as there CD digipak, this might not be recongizable for the audience but since they have their name of he band in big bold letters their fans will realise that the poster is for their CD Digipak. I decided to keep our images the same throughout though just in case our fans didn’t recognise our band. The poster we created is basic like the professional ones above but very effective as we have included our URL for our band website.

Music Video

When making our music video I thought about the story behind the video rather than the forms and conventions of real media products. We did think about real media products but not very much detail but after completing our music video I know can see how our music video is professional like a real product and does use some conventions of real media products. The variety of shots that I used are widely used in music videos whereas transitions which we used such as the credits were a new thing which thought we would challenge the conventions in which we believed it worked. We decided to have a number of credits because we thought that this would give more information about our music video.

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

I think that all of my products come together and which they all link. I used the same colours and effects throughout my music video and ancillary tasks.

The promotional poster links to the digital pack by including the same images as each other. The colour scheme throughout the CD digipack and poster is the same whereas my internet page which created was different because it was hard to try and get that effect on the Webpage. This is where I had a few technqal problems but solved them by doing one thing or another. The promotional poster has a really good effect and links to the main product because the iconography, which the drink has, as it relates to a section in the music video I have created. All the products seem to flow together and all distinguish a good link between each other.

I think that if my music video was actually going to be created the Drink would be the main identifier for this product and also would be a key selling point for merchandise and products.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From my audience feedback which i received i learnt a number of things, but the main one being, doing small adjustments to certain things makes a product look so much better. When creating the promotional poster we just left it plain and simple, but adding the the band name so fans would recognise us made it look so much better and eye catching to the audience. At first we didn’t use any effects for our promotional poster which meant it was simple and basic but after adding additional effects and colour to it made it look more professional and more at a high standard.

The other audience feedback which i received was that people were saying that the person singing behind the video was speaking quickly which people could not understand it, so we decided to put a few transitions in which i found helped the audience to understand the music video.

What I would have changed given the chance?

Doesn’t matter how good your final product is, there is always small things you would change. If i had the chance to do this again i would change a lot of things, some of these are; changing the genre of my music video to R n B, finding a better location and raise money so that i could be able to pay for better props throughout my music video.

By doing all these things would make my music video a better final production. Hopefully, one day i will get to re-do this and make it better.

Working In a Group Evaluation

During the course of my music video and ancillary tasks I decided to work as a group. I think that this favoured me over people working by themselves but also had me at a disadvantage.

Working in a group would put me at an advantage as I could share the work load whereas working by yourself would mean that all of the work load would be on you. Sharing tasks mean that I would know what to do and when it needed to be done by, a personal action plan.

Working in a group also meant that i could get a variety of audience feedback which means that i could improve my music video to the best possible standard. Working in a group also helped me during this music video as more ideas were collected so if one idea didn’t work more than likely another idea would, whereas if i worked by myself i would have to come up with my own ideas.

As i worked by myself in the AS media coursework i thought i would challenge myself and see how it would be to work in a group. After both working in a group and working by myself i would personally say that working by yourself is better, the main reason being is that you don’t need to rely on nobody and if you forget to do something it will be your fault and you can’t blame anyone else.

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

Whilst creating my music video and ancillary tasks, from start I had to use knowledge that I had gained In AS Media when regarding technologies. I used professional image editing software in order to create the magazine cover and also used professional web designer software when designing it.

Overall I think that they gave me the best effect possible as I wouldn't have been able to do this using basic software such as paint or Microsoft publisher, so this made me choose to Adobe Photoshop.

For filming I used a SONY Handy Cam which I was familiar with from filming other pieces that I have done previously in the AS media course, I tried to include as many shots as I could in the production of the product using the knowledge that I had gained from AS level to A2 which I think gave me an overall better product.

For editing I used the program iMovie, this helped me to create the Music Video by cutting and cropping pieces from the footage, adding transitions and also adding sound to the piece.

PRINT SCREENS OF WEBPAGE

I have done a print screen of my Webpage because due to technical problems the only way I can get people to view my Webpage is by doing print screens. As well of doing print screens i have also burnt my webpage on to CD so the examining body can view the original.

UPLOAD OF MAGAZINE ADVERTISMENT

Below is my Magazine advertisement for part of my Ancillary tasks. As you can see we decided to keep it consistent throughout our Main Task which was the music video and also our Webpage and Magazine advertisement. We had the same background and font all the same throughout each task. This will help our fans to recognize the "City Lightz" band.

Website Completed!

I have finally finished the Website for our music band. As before we have got techniqal problems with uploading the website, we cannot make the link to my webpage accessible to people externally this is because we don't have the hosting license. Also my school cannot afford to have hosting license because it is expensive, So instead of uploading my webpage I have decided to show it by doing a number of things these are, one by burning it on to CD so people can view it externally and also a few print screens which you can see on my other blog.

At first when doing my Webpage we just left it plain and simple. After I got some audience feedback I decided to change it all this is because from the people who viewed my webpage they all said they didn't know that all the tasks linked because some bits were consistent, so i decided to change this. I made all the tasks link by doing number of things, these were; having the same images throughout the tasks, same font throughout tasks and also the same band name.

POSTER!

As well as creating the Webpage i also created the Poster. This wasn't very hard to do, but the research parting bit of it was. I had to research a number of posters which artists have bought out. I found a link between the front cover of the CD Covers and the poster which Artists do for advertisements. Usually the poster advertisment is basically the front cover of the CD cover. I decided to create my poster by using the same background as my front cover of the CD.

The poster which i have created is on the CD which i have put in my folder.

Drink, Our Music Video

After all the editing, sound clips and all the techniqal problems we finished our music video. As a group we decided to upload it to Youtube so that class mates and people outside school can view it. This also helped me for my evaluation, because they could tell me what could be better and what was good about the music video. The music video we created i thought was very successful because we planned what we needed to do and how we was going to do it. Planning played a big part in how successful our music video. After completing our music video i think that without planning anything your production will not e successful. In our shooting scripts their was a number of hings we took out, this was for one reason or another such as not getting the right props or we didnt have a Dog. In one of scenes in our shooting script we was going to have Sam getting chased by a dog but we didnt have a highly skilled dog who would chase sam and controlabbly bight him. So we found a different scenario in which we could do. This happened in a number of situations but we overcome the problems and successfully completed our music video. To view our Music video please follow the link below, you will be able to view it on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/sugarjunkiesam#p/a/u/0/7Yqs6Y_FWmI

We took a variety of shots, these were both steady and non steady shots. We used non steady shots when they were needed for example, when sam was about to get beat up. Please check the print screen below:

Our music was appropriate to our video, we thought both went well together. We got our ideas from the videos we researched in our Research and Planning task.

Throughout our music video we didn't use many transactions but we did have credits in between the different shots. I have shown this below: