Wednesday, 25 April 2018

Evaluation Question 4

How did we use media technologies in the construction, research and panning stages of our video?


Before we had our online discussion I created a list on which we could base our conversation, making sure we didn't miss anything and ensuring it followed a coherent structure. We all had access to this during our conversation, allowing it to direct the topics covered. Therefore it can be see below as a rough structure of our discussion surrounding question 4: 

Media Technologies List 

Research: (1-5 minutes) 
-Survey monkey which was posted on social media (Facebook) to reach a wide range of people in order to establish a target audience and effectively tailor the video to their needs - very effective! Allowed us to generate a large number of results and deeply analyse our findings 
-We also used google and ‘YouGov’ to understand the target audiences of similar bands and compare this to our own research to get an accurate view of our primary and secondary target audiences. This research allowed us to construct a music video that was relevant to it’s viewers and enabled us to plan our video around their needs e.g. including a narrative and the types of lighting and colour we used throughout the video. 
-We also used youtube to watch similar videos to gain ideas and understand our genre conventions e.g. Maroon 5’s 'harder to breathe' which influenced the camerawork in the ‘live performance’ aspect of our video. We were then able to embed these videos into our blogs to analyse the media language used within them and present this research in an effective and clear way.

Planning: (5-8:10 minutes) 
-We used a power point during our pitch of the music video to illustrate our ideas and sell our potential product. We used screenshots of music videos we had been influenced by and even gradually added colour in through the presentation to demonstrate the colour shift idea we envisioned for the video. This helped make our pitch more effective and allowed us to visually illustrate our points to communicate our ideas in what became a successful pitch. 
-We continually used blogger throughout our research, planning and construction to document every new video we had seen or were influenced by, as well as keeping track of the process and continuously evaluating our work. We embedded pictures and videos in our posts to refer back to throughout the process e.g. when we were location scouting we wrote posts about our findings and were able to refer back to these in the production stage and when drawing our storyboard to develop a clear shooting schedule with the locations found in the research stage. 
-We used a scanner to enable us to scan in the physical copies of our storybaord and email them to ourselves so we could embed these into the blog as well. This was exceptionally helpful and allows each of us to have our own copy of the storyboard which was very useful during the production stages of the process. 

Construction: (8:10-19:10 minutes)
-What cameras we used, how we used them, decisions regarding tripods and handheld?
-Lighting and issues we had with it due to the quality of the cameras - not good at shooting in low light?
-White balance in band shoot
-Exposure in band shoot
-Having all the cameras set up the same way 
-How we fixed the lighting issues through colour adjustments on final cut - band stuff and shooting night scenes in the day and then upping the dark tones to make it look like night to get a better quality image. 
-Final cut and how we used it - importing the sound from iTunes and loading the video on top, doing the band segment first and adding the narrative above it? 
-We also used youtube during the construction of our product to get our rough cuts from final cut to our blogs via the group’s youtube channel. This enabled us to continue embedding our work into our blogs and further document the process. 
-Ed’s bit about photoshop, illustrator and maybe even the websites he imported the font from

Evaluation: (19:10 - 22 minutes)
-We used several different technologies to construct our evaluation answers:
-iMovie to make the video (I think that’s what Ed used) 
-I’m guessing we’ll use final cut to edit our group discussion on this one and cameras to film it. 
-Screen recording in something?
-Survey monkey for audience feedback 
-Prezzi?
-Powerpoint?
-Poster on word or something?
-Any other ideas on how to present the other evaluation questions? 

From 22 minutes onwards we evaluate our work, covering the points on this list and more that we thought of in the moment. There isn't as much of a structure to this section as we are all inputting ideas as we think of them, however the focus is on the evaluation of the effectiveness of our use of media technologies. 

Difficulties we faced with media technologies:
-The band wanted the video to be a secret so we were unable to post about it on social media - massive backfire. However we got around this by posting about a music video but without ever mentioning the band or the song. We actually played on the idea that it was a secret in order to generate anticipation and excitement surrounding the announcement of the video. Therefore we posted pictures of the video’s production stages e.g. James in Leeds or members of the group filming, and included several hashtags on every post in order to reach the widest audience possible. This helped us drum up interest surrounding our video, particularly towards our primary target audience who are females aged 16-25 who are most likely to be reached through social media sites such as instagram. 
-Difficulties with youtube because the band didn’t have the correct licensing for their music to be on this platform, therefore we initially had some trouble using it to transport the video from final cut to blogger and to show the video to audiences fro feedback. However, we managed to get around this by creating a private account… - I’m not entirely sure what you did Rob but you could talk about this here. 
-Difficulties with photoshop and illustrator from Ed
-Difficulties with the sound on the video - what was happening and what we’re going to do to fix it (we need to ask sir about that one) 
-Difficulties with the cameras and shooting in low light - nighttime shots in Leeds from that first shoot and the footage of the band which could’ve been improved with better lighting to allow the cameras to capture a clearer image. 

Did we make good use of these technologies? 
-We learnt how to get the best results out of the cameras as we went along, ensuring we were always filming in enough light to avoid repeating our initial mistakes (could we talk about ISO here?) 
-Good use of photoshop but could’ve made better use of illustrator? - ups and downs of this process? 
-Good use of final cut, using it to colour correct the video and put the whole thing together
-Very good use of blogger throughout, used to document process, organise work and keep as a reference to all the ideas and influences we collected throughout our research which we referred back to throughout the planning and construction stages of the process. 
-We were limited in our use of social media and youtube but did the best we could considering the extreme circumstances. 

Did any produce unexpected results? 
There were some happy accidents in the editing process, is anything shouting out at you concerning the digipak?

How much did the technology enhance our work? 
Considerably. It enabled us to do the work. 
-Final cut allowed us to colour correct lighting
-The camera’s manual focus allowed us to get some really nice footage with focus shifts etc.
-Survey monkey and social media allowed us to reach a wide range of people and generate an accurate target audience which we were then able to tailor the video towards to make it as successful as possible
-Google drive allowed us to send the video to the band on a private platform to get their feedback and therefore improve the video and meet the needs of them and the record label effectively. 
-Photoshop - nice digipak? 

Did our technical ability limit us, or did it grow?
-Ed can definitely talk about learning his way around photoshop 
-I can talk about learning about final cut and cameras - learning from mistakes so our ability to get usable footage increased throughout the process 
-Learning how to use survey monkey allowed us to reach more people in our audience research than last year when we just used family and friends. 

Judge the effectiveness of our work throughout! 

Anything else please add on!! I’m sure I’ve missed stuff and the more we have to talk about the better! 

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