Question 3 Evaluation: What Have You Learnt From Your Target Audience Feedback?

Q3 evaluation from CharlotteBeadle

Question 4 Evaluation: How Did You Use Media Technologies In the Constructions and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

Construction:

Research:

Planning: 

Eval part 4 planning from CharlotteBeadle

Eval part 3 planning from CharlotteBeadle

Evaluation:

I used a range of digital technology when answering my evaluation questions. I did this as I thought my skills had developed significantly and this meant I was able to use and find different and unique presentation methods. Presentation methods such as Prezi, Emaze and Powtoon are like power points but more fun and interesting, I felt by using these I have widened my digital technology skills/use and also my creativity skills as I went out my way to find new ways to present my evaluation questions.  I also found 'Fotobabble' which I have used below to explain our use of Final Cut Pro-X voice recording. I feel by using this wide range of presentation methods makes my blog and work more advanced, more exciting to look at and also less repetitive. 

Final cut Pro-X: 

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Emaze

I used the digital technology Emaze to present my construction stage evaluation Q4. Emaze is an easy digital technology to use and is very similar to an ordinary powerpoint. However Emaze has more interesting themes and transitions making it  a lot more appealing and eye catching to those watching. Although it has many interesting themes they are sometimes not easy to use. As a result of some of the themes background being pictures it is difficult to pick a text colour that can be seen and easily read throughout the presentation, this is why I chose a solid colour background as it meant my text was clear and a consistent colour/font.

Prezi

I used Prezi to present the answer to my Question 2 Evaluation. I used this digital technology as I felt I had a lot to say and evaluate with this question in particular and an ordinary presentation would be very long and boring to go through. If i used screengrabs and text to evaluate then again it would become an essay type response and it would end up being very long winded. Prezi is a great way to present things as there is again, a lot of themes and colours to choose from which is what made this one so colourful and exciting. I think Prezi is better than Emaze to use as a digital technology as the background on Prezi themes don't make it difficult to make text clear as they are normally on a white background or a very faint colour.

Powtoon 

Powtoon is more like an animated video rather than a presentation you click through. Powtoon is very fun to use and watch as you can add moving animations. My use of this digital technology developed my creativity skills as I had to figure out how to use this as I was the first one to find it. It was difficult to get to grips with but when you get used to it and start to understand what you're doing it is very fun to use. The outcome of this digital technology is very unique and interesting to watch. I used this technology for this question as I felt what I wanted to put on the slides was not legnthy and meant it would make the animated video quick and snappy instead of long and boring. Powtoon is meant for quick and snappy slides, I would be using this digital technology wrong if i made all the slides full of texts and had no images or animations present on any of the slides.

Powerpoint / Slideshare.

I used powerpoint to present my evaluation question 3 and evaluation question 4 part 3 planning. I used powerpoint as it enabled me to include pie charts. By using pie charts it makes the results from our target audience feedback more understandable. I also used powerpoint as it meant I could answer individual questions on each slide instead of doing it in an all in one essay style answer.

Powerpoint also makes my work look very neat and well presented as it has a wider range of coloured themes with different fonts and backgrounds.

I then went onto use a technology called 'slideshare.' Slideshare enables me to upload my powerpoint and embed it into my blog. Without using this digital technology I would be unable to embed a powerpoint in my blog and this would restrict my use of digital technology when presenting my work. Slideshare is very easy and free therefore it is highly beneficial and something I have used throughout this course.

FINAL Music Video

We conducted a small focus group and I wrote up 5 questions I wanted them to answer. The feedback from this group resulted in us making further minor adjustments to make our video appeal to our target audience even more. This is our very final music video.

FINAL Magazine Advert.

After realising we had put 'Settle Down' instead of 'Seasons Change' and also 'Debut Single' instead of 'Debut Album' on our advert for our digipak we made these minor changes and this is our very final magazine advert.

FINAL Digipak.

I have decided to edit in the green from the background of the Ethan shot. I feel like if we only had this panel of the digipak in black and white fully it would make it look boring at first glance. Now there are four parts of the digipak that include the bright green and I think this emphasises the synergy more and definitely makes it a lot more eye catching at first glance if someone was to see it on the shelf in a shop. As a result of not having too much text on the front I feel like the simple editing technique of including the green in the back ground makes it look a lot less boring and more unique.  I changed the opacity of the CD as I felt beforehand it was too sharp and by reducing the opacity I feel it looks more like what a real CD would look like. Having Charmaine smiling at one side and Ethan looking into the distance puts across how she is happy even when she is making Ethan's life hell, this is one way our ancillary products link with our music video narrative.

Additional Promotional Media: Tour Poster.

If we have advertised a tour in our digipak then we would need a tour poster to advertise the tour further and in more detail. This is a draft of what I would want our tour poster to look like. I feel that having the little bit of colour from his jacket makes it stand out as it is quite a bright and vivid colour. I think this tour poster would stand out well either in a magazine or on a wall somewhere. The red of his jacket would appeal to those passing by and catch their eye and this will result in them reading it and maybe listening to our singers album and buying tickets to go see him.

Difficulties with audience feedback.

When I used Facebook for target audience feedback I came across a problem, the video wasn't compatible on a mobile device and could only be viewed on a laptop. This meant many people couldn't give me feedback as they didn't have a laptop, only Ipads and phones etc. It was a big inconvenience as those who didn't have laptops to view it on where mainly of an older audience who I wanted to get feedback off so I could compare it to my actual target audience age group.

I tried to make it compatible on mobile but was unsuccessful, I am unsure why it has done this.

Further Target Audience Feedback.

I wrote this status on Facebook in hope I would get a bit more feedback on my video and maybe get some feedback from people who don't fit into my target audience age group so I could compare the results. The questions I asked those who messaged me were;

1. What do you like and dislike about the video?

2. Does the singer convince you?

3. Do you understand the narrative?

Conor who did the exact same course as I am doing watched the video and gave me some very helpful feedback. I feel I agree with his feedback especially his question 3 response as upon reflection I did think some shots were just a bit too long. Conor is within the older sector of our age range and comparing his feedback to those who are at the younger end of our target audience is very reassuring as the feedback is more or less the same therefore our video is appealing to the whole target audience age range.

The next person who inboxed me was someone who I don't know too well but I do know they have limited knowledge in regards to media so I knew that the feedback would be honest. She more or less got the outline of the narrative and how it was kind of a secret fling. As she within our target audience age group it was good to hear how much she liked the video. 

Eva did media at GCSE therefore her knowledge was slightly more developed. So far all the feedback about the black and white effect has been positive, since we was unsure about applying the effect at the start it is very reassuring that comments regarding that effect have been positive.

Sophie gave very in-depth feedback which helped a lot. I agree with the blurry shot criticism as sometimes we didn't choose places that had the best lighting, like the tunnel, so it was hard to get a good quality shot when lighting was limited.

Overall this feedback was mainly positive as they all understood the narrative, however there was a lot of criticisms of some of the synchronisation.

Digipak Draft 8.

We have added a UK tour and European tour dates to our digipak as we feel advertising in the digipak will mean more people will see it and go see our singer live. My creativity skills have developed massively while putting this digipak together as we was going to leave this part of the digipak black with only 'Seasons change people don't.' on it. By using my creativity I put the green background in and this brightened it up a lot a it looked very dull and boring beforehand. I think by adding the green and the tour dates makes it look more eye catching and appealing to our target audience who probably wouldn't be attracted to this digipak if it was boring and dull.

Group Post: Magazine Advert: Draft 6.

This is our draft 6 of our magazine advert. We removed the lyric quote 'a soft sound' and replaced it with a quote from a magazine. We did this as the lyric quote was unclear and confusing and by having a review quote from a popular magazine with the similar genre our target audience will automatically be attracted to our advert and singer. We also made Ethan a lot brighter than the green background  as it was overpowering him. We wanted him to be prominent and standing out but the background was too bright it washed him out and didn't make him as eye catching.

Where could we feature our magazine advert?

If we was actually publishing our magazine advert in a magazine we would need to put thought into beforehand where it would be most successful and what magazine has the same target audience as our singer. We would need a magazine with the same genre as our singer and also a magazine with the same young target audience.

After some research I think NME and Q would be the best magazines to feature our advert in. They both have the same genre as our singer and also the people who buy their magazine are within our target audience age range so our advert will appeal to the readers. I wouldn't choose a magazine such as Kerrang! to put our advert in as I feel they appeal more to rock lovers rather than indie music lovers. This would result in our singers album not being successful as the advertising was put across to the wrong audience.

Digipak Draft 7.

This is out digipak draft 7. The major change we had made from the previous draft to this one is the inside cover.  We text wrapped the 'seasons change' around her head as it looked stupid covering her forehead. I also duplicated the text layers and moved the bottom layer to give a 3D effect. The background looked dull with just the wall there, so I decided to create more synergy and edit in the leaves from the CD and also the leaves featured on the magazine advert. I feel like making these small  changes made a big difference as it makes it look more appealing and eye catching. We are adding UK tour dates on the left Europe tour dates on the right. We are adding more text to make it look less boring and to add more information to the debut album.

Group Post: Magazine Advert Draft 5.

Here is our final magazine advert. We added social media logos so the audience knew he was active on social media platforms and they could engage with him. We changed the 'debut single' text to the same font as what is featured on the digipak and music video to create more synergy across our promotional package.

Magazine Advert Draft 4.

This is our finished magazine advert. We looked at existing magazine adverts for other artists and saw that most of the time the text was centralised. To make our advert more appealing and smart we did the same. We added another layer behind 'debut single' to give it a bit of a shadow and make it look 3D. I think the centralisation of the text makes it look a lot neater and professional.

Digipak Draft 6.

On this draft we decided to text wrap 'seasons change' around her head to make it look a bit more professional and the text looked stupid going across her forehead. We have also added a spine.

Target Audience Feedback - Focus Group.

Group Post - Magazine Advert: Draft 3.

This is our third draft of our magazine advert. We have tried to keep the text to a minimum and tried to use as much green as possible to try and synergise our ancillary products. We have featured ways our singers new album can be downloaded as most people download songs now instead of buying an actual copy from a shop.

Digipak Draft 5.

This is our draft 5 of the digipak. We have added a border and little text to the inside cover as we didn't want it over crowded yet without a border it looked quite plain. The border makes it stand out more. We also added our song list on the back of the songs featured in the album.

Digipak Draft 4.

Here is draft 4 of our digipak. We have named the album 'Seasons Change' as we feel like we have a range of seasons in our music video and photographs. The seasons in the video are clearly shown by in some shots Ethan is surrounded by trees and he is dressed just in a shirt (Summer) whereas in other shots they are shown to be throwing leaves about and dressed fully in coats, hats and gloves (Winter). We thought this album name is creative and links with the leaves on the CD.

Below are some close ups of parts of the digipak draft that are difficult to see properly on the screenshot of the digipak as a whole.

Group Post: Magazine Advert: Draft 2.

This is the second draft of our magazine advert. After looking at numerous existing advertisements, we decided to completely change the layout starting with the image. We found that the advertisements with a close-up image of the artist, really stands out a lot more and captures attention from the audience.

We have decided to use white for our font colour with some green. The white font links with our digipak and our music video, this creates synergy within our products.

Digipak draft 3.

This is our digipak draft 3. We have linked the green from the magazine advert in with the CD on his album to create synergy. I also think having the bright green CD makes it stand out and look unique.

Group Post: Magazine Advert: Draft 1.

This is our first draft for our magazine advertisement. Even though our music video is black and white we have decided to go with the idea of keeping the advertisement in colour; we think that it will be a lot more eye catching and we can use the green as synergy for our CD. 

Music video 2.

This is our updated music video. We have only edited a few shots but these minor adjustments have reduced the shot lengths as you can see the actors standing about waiting for us to say 'action.' By reducing these shot lengths our music video looks a lot more professional.

How did the target audience feedback help?

The TA feedback helped massively as it made it clear we have created a video that would be consumed and be popular by the exact audience we wanted. The very positive feedback was helpful as it meant we didn't have many adjustments to make. Although there was some criticisms verbally we have soon changed the shots criticised to make it even more enjoyable for the target audience. I think we have finally finished our music video altogether and I am going to show a few more people the finished video so they can give anymore feedback whether it be critical or positive and that means we still have time to make more tweaks if need be before it's too late.

Tools used on Final Cut Pro-X.

We used many tools and techniques on Final Cut to produce a music video that looked professional. The tools we used were: 

Blade - This tool was very useful for cutting shots short and making sure the jump cuts where on the beat and the right length.

Import - This was obviously used a lot as we had hundreds of clips we needed to import onto our timeline and without this tool we would not have been able to make our video.

Detach Audio - This was also a crucial tool we needed to use a lot. This tool took off the audio from the clips we filmed so there was no background noise over the song.

Disable clip - This was a handy tool as it meant if we didn't know what clip we wanted to use in a certain space we could put one clip over another and disable one and see which one looked better.

Under and Over cranking - There are a few clips of Charmaine where this came in handy. Under-cranking the shots gave it more of an effective emotive feel in my opinion and it was used in the correct places where if the song was slow then thats when we would use the slowing down tool. We also used over cranking to create  a time lapse looking shot, this was also used effectively as it went really well with the instrumental part of the song. (shown below)

Gaps and Markers - We didn't use these two tools a great deal but when we did they were very helpful. We used markers when we needed to mark where the beat was so we knew thats where one clip needed to be cut to another so it was on beat and looked good. Gaps where also good when we came to nearly finishing but still had a few shots to go we used gaps to mark out where the shots needed to be exactly. This was very helpful as we knew exactly how long the shots needed to be and we could just drop them right in. Using gaps also meant no other clips would come out of sync so we could work on the rest of the video while waiting to re film.

Lift from storyline - Lifting a clip from the storyline was very useful as it meant we could play around with the lifted clip all we wanted and because it wasn't on the storyline it meant it wouldn't mess up anything else or put anything out of sync. Below is a screenshot of how the lift form story line tool being used on our music video.

Show video animation - This was a useful tool as when we was experimenting with different colour effects it was easy to see what we had on the clip already so if we didn't like it then they where easy to get rid of and disable.

Opacity - We used this tool quite a bit when we was doing shots over each other or when Charmaine's face was faded in. It was very effective as it meant shots could be easily faded in nicely instead of all at once all of a sudden

Target Audience Feedback - Use of social media.

Criticisms from this feedback?
There where a few criticisms which where that in some parts of the video you could tell they where waiting about for us to say 'action.' We have acted on this criticism and shortened the shots where it was clear they where waiting around.

Digipak Draft 2.

This is our digipak draft 3. We have added the lyrics to the song that is featured in our music video as this is the song that will be released as a single before the album, this should mean it is most popular therefore we included the lyrics as this may attract people to buying the album.

Dave from Blueprint visit.

Having Dave from Blueprint Film in Lincoln was a very beneficial as he is a professional and this meant he could also make our video look more professional. He didn't have many major criticisms but he did help us with a few little things such as shortening shots so they don't look like they're waiting around.  He also made sure all our shots where cutting on the beat like we wanted them too.

Overall I enjoyed Dave's visit very much as he gave us some great pointers which we followed through with and made our music video look more clean cut and professional.

Music Video.

Use of colour in some shots.

 We decided to put in colour in just these two shots as it emphasises that Ethan's world is pretty dark and then Charmaine comes along and brightens it up. It adds to the story and I think the colour goes well and makes it easier for the audience to understand the relationship between the two and Ethan's feelings towards her. I think that having just these two shots of Charmaine overlapping other shots makes the colour work even better as it is a subtle change from black and white whereas if it was just a cut shot to Charmaine on her own in colour it wouldn't be as effective and would look less professional.