Evaluation Script- Directors commentary

Evaluation Script

Evaluation Feedback - Aimee

A good start Aimee.

Question 2: Good on definitions of branding - don't forget to include your brand image ( the 3/4 words that sum up your artists image) then look at how this is pushed through the three products.

Good detailed analysis here and use of images.

Question Three: Include your initial target audience questionnaires and the graphs and charts done on these - sum up what you learned about your target audience and what they want from music videos etc...

Explain how you used these results to create your final products.

Then include the final audience feedback on your video ( graphs and charts too etc...)

Use this to sum up how effective, real and authentic you feel your final 3 products actually are.

Don't forget to look at the example evaluations on the Advanced Portfolio blog too to get an idea of what you are aiming at.

Miss McNulty

Final Feedback - group

Some good print products group - remember you need to put 2 album adverts on here and 6 panels for the CD covers!

Miss McNulty

Evaluation- question 3- Aimee

Question 3 on Prezi

Evaluation- Question 2 - Aimee

Question two

View more presentations from AimeeAlty93.

Evaluation- Question 4- Aimee

 When I started my Research and planning I used this site a lot because it broaden my research and it helped me gather ideas for my ancillary print work and the music video. This site is very easy and accessible to use and therefore it is very useful develop your music video from researching your music genre and the conventions of a music video. This is so my music video would become more appealing to my target audience by researching your brand image for your artist. Google is always being updated with recent new information and this is one of the best search engines to use because it is very fast running. I used this site to find pictures to explain my research and planning in my blog and also I used some pictures in my music video for example the brick wall background which I found off the Google website. I didnt have any difficulties in using Google because it the most popular search engine and I've been using it for years.


 Youtube is a great site for music videos because it can be watched by millions and is easily accessible I used this site quite frequently for my research tasks because since I was producing a music video, Youtube is the best example to search for music videos related to my music genre and this inspired my music video. It helps you analyse the music videos and the performance of the artist and does the artist meet its expectations to its music genre. These music videos were placed on our blog by using the embed code, in order to show what we are planning to do with our music video by using the similar conventions from official music videos.This can able you to watch the music video over and over again unlike watching it on a music channel  and you can analyse its key points to the tiniest of details that catches your eye by pausing the video and rewinding. By using this site it helps you form your own brand image from the ideas you develop. Also we used Youtube to upload our music video and green screening practices by copying and pasting the embed code into the blog in order to show our progress through our research and planning and then towards our Final Piece which was the music video. The only difficulty with using YouTube is that on certain music videos, you are not able to copy the video's song due to the copyrights act.

 I used Microsoft office quite alot during my research and planning, this was so I could display my thoughts and ideas that would go towards my music video in the future. I used microsoft word to create my questionnaires and my audience feedback to find out the thoughts and response from my target audience and other audiences included. I created the questionnaire on Microsoft word because it is a very easy to use and most people are familiar with it; I am able to change the colour of the text but usually black ink is the used regularly so I stuck with black and also I can change what type of font for my questionnaire and also being able to add photos as well. On the other hand on certain Microsoft word programs are old fashioned technology compared to the Apple Macs.

Another program that I used from the Microsoft Office was Powerpoint and I used it to display my research and planning in more of easier way to read and take in the information unlike just displaying all pictures in a column down your blog. In Powerpoint, it allows you create graphs for your audience feedbacks results and this can be displayed all in one Powerpoint to many powerpoint slides and to just one blog post. This makes it more efficient for space and complexity. Powerpoints allows you to add photos and different types of backgrounds to make it look more exicted compared to a A4 sheet and a blog post. We uploaded our Powerpoints to SlideShare and then embedded them into our blogs and they can be read more easily by other people. However after using a site called 'Prezi' it makes Microsoft powerpoint very old fashioned to use because Prezi seems to be more complex to use. Myself still struggles to upload youtube videos on powerpoint as a slide unlike Prezi where I found straight forward.

Microsoft Excel I used to create my graphs and results from my audience feedback which is a very clear way of displaying your findings towards your audience. It lets you use different types of graphs but the pie chart graph is the most easiest to read and you can see the percentage of your overall result. Although when producing charts on powerpoint, you still have to use excel and if you don't save the charts then your results can be lost, which is more time consuming.
  

 We used this site called Blogger because it is a new and more efficient way of recording down your coursework and presenting ideas and showing your progress through We used first in our research and planning stage but we used it throughout the whole of the project. It is very simple site to use , it allows you to add images and embed powerpoints. Also it allows you to keep up to date with any unfinished pieces of work. By using this site it can make your work look very professional and look very organised and also you can click on which post you want to view on the right side of the blog. I found this site very useful because I can display my ideas and thoughts and it helps you develop to your final piece. I used my blog because it was more helpful to record my coursework instead of giving paper sheets to a teacher so they could mark it. Being able to do this, it avoided the potential lost of coursework sheets, and each part of your course work could be done in a reasonable time. Also the teacher could comment on a post and give you feedback about how you should improve your blog. This was helpful because it was not time consuming and I could work individually on my own and update whenever I wanted to and from any computer with internet access. Also the teacher could comment on a post and give you feedback about how you should improve your blog. The only problem I have experienced with this site is that if the internet fails then you can not enter your blog and post new information on your blog. 


We used this site to find our font for our brand image and the artist. Since we were a Grime music genre we had to find something that was slick and cool and also something that stood out to catch our audience's attention. It is important to choose a font because the font needs to be the artist's trade mark. For my album cover and advertisement poster I used a font called 'Pornstar Academy' which are huge american style football letters which worked best for our artist's image. The only problem with this site is that you have to own a Apple Mac computer so you can download different fonts therefore advanced technology has to be involved if you want to create professional quality work.

 

 To upload my powerpoints on to blogger, I used Slideshare and Scribd because once you log into your account it allows you to upload any powerpoint or word document which saves space in your blog as it is only one blog post that is submitted. You can choose privacy if you wanted to share your powerpoint or word document with the public. After it was uploaded on Slideshare or Scribd, you then copy and paste the embed code and then pasted it on your blog by changing the setting to 'Edit HTML' and post your blog on the site and then you have a powerpoint in one post. This is helpful because you can write as much as you want in your powerpoint since you can enlarge the powerpoint presentation to full computer screen size. It very simple and easy to use and you can access from any computer, which makes it more beneficial to blog users like me. However sometimes the blog posts don't show up on the blog and become blank so you would have to upload it again.



 Apple iMacs were used through out our work, during our research and development in order to get professional quality for our products in the music industry. IMacs is very efficient to use and very fast which is great for designing our print work and editing our music video; once you had got to grips with the software it becomes more easier to use and it helps you broaden your ideas. For our entire project, this type of computer allowed us to use more equip programs such as InDesign, PhotoShop and Final Cut which enhance the professional quality to our products. On the other hand using Apple Macs are completely different compared to Microsoft computer because all the setting are the opposite to Microsoft; for example there is no right click unless you press a certain key, but you would have to get all your information from a tab at the top of the screen.




When I was using PhotoShop for my Print projects, I did find it a bit hard to use because it had been so long since I last used but once I got stuck into the project I found it the gradient tools very easy to use. By using this program it enhances your print work to a professional standard. We used this program to edit our photos to enhance the quality and make them stand out more to the audience. We did  this by cutting around the character and placing different backgrounds in order to stick with the artists brand image where he included the colour pink into his music video. To do this you would have two layers and you can lock the layers in case they got deleted when they weren't being used. For my poster advertisement I made the photo black and white for his character which is a very striking image and catches your eye instantly. I used the image colum above the screen which allows me to edit the quality of the photo such as the contrast, the saturation and many more tools to enhance the photo as it is.


With PhotoShop it allowed to try out new ways of presenting my print work to the audience. For my album cover I use to two of the same images and placed one on top of the other to make him stand out more and surprisingly it enhance the quality of the picture by outlining his figure more.  For album panel I used PhotoShop to edit my back ground image which is the brick wall where I used a washout effect on the brick wall and the artist as well so the lyrics on the album panel would stand out better.

InDesign is a completly different program compared to PhotoShop because all the fiddly bits have been done in PhotoShop and then when it comes to InDesign you are obviously designing your Print work which is straight forward if you have used this program before. In InDesign you are able to place text boxes, shapes and images in order to create your print work. Unlike Microsoft InDesign can offer a wider range of different styles of fonts, and this helped alot because we could find something that is suited to our music genre and fitted our brand image. InDesign is a very advanced software and this program can make your print work look very professional and more appealing to your audience. It had a lot of helpful tools for me to achieve the standard of work I put into my ancillary tasks. InDesign has a list of all of the different colours that I could use which allowed to choose from different shades of pink, I did this by using the colour swatches which meant I was able to experiment with colour and this helped me to right colour of pink that would go towards my album cover and advertisement poster. When you start using InDesign you had to choose your template in order to fit a square shaped album cover whereas for a poster it was obviously an A4 template. This enabled you work like a professional by following the typical rules of branding and advertisement. For my album cover I used stripes for my background however I did place them over the artist and used the transparent tool  in order to see my artist and for the pink stripes not to stand out more than the photo of the artist which works well because I stuck to the brand image of my artist. I used a vigetta effect on my album cover and poster because the shadowing light around the slides and around the artist highlighted his figure and made him stand out more. In my album panel I made the heart transparent in order to see the artist and the especially the lyrics which is the main purpose in this piece of artwork. On InDesign you were able to crop and cut your images so it fitted into the space of the page. For my poster I cropped the album cover and placed it in the corner but instead of dragging the picture to that size, you have to click on ctrl and shift or you would be cutting your picture instead. InDesign is difficult to use at first due to the hundreds of options that edit your artwork but in the end it became straight forward for me. 




Final Cut we used to create our music video, by editing and cutting footage to piece it together. At first I found it quite difficult to use because I was so familiar with using InDesign and PhotoShop but after a while it became more easier to use. You would start a new document and place your footage in the left hand box which allows you to watch the parts of your video and then cut and paste the parts which you will used in your music video. Once you have cut it , you can then drag it on to the timeline. This a simple progress to do and before you know it you have all the footage for your music video on the time line. Before you add the music on to the time you should mute all the footage so there is no background noise when the music video is completed; you would have to click on the lock button in order to keep that sound without being deleted. This goes for the video time line as well, it helps because it avoids deleting footage from your video. 


After that you can start added special effects to each part of your video to make it more exciting. You would have to use the razor tool which allows you to cut certain parts of your footage and then you are able to drag effects on to each cut part. This makes one scene have many effects and more exciting to watch for the audience. 


The colour can be edited to make backgrounds suited the character in the video because I found out after green screening the background and the artist were two different colours and did not match together which did not look very professional but after I changed the colour of the artist, it looked like the background light had reflected on to him and look more realistic, I did this on the brick wall background. I used a heart image and made a flicking image to move which was one of main effects we wanted in the video. I used a dazzle glow effect on the heart to have this neon effect and for it to look more suited to the music video. In Final Cut we used a lot of green screening so we had to drag a chroma key effect on to the footage in order to remove the green back ground and place another back ground which suited the video. 


On video timeline you have different layers which enable you to put two different scenes of footage on the time line at the same time; this allowed me to over lap my footage like the couple of the boy and girl and the pulsing heart which looks very effective and you want your audience to be entertained during the music video.



After all that it would be exported on QuickTime in order to be compatible for You Tube software when uploading your video, this can take a while to upload. I would only use Quicktime after I had finished my directors commentary and music video on Final Cut. 

We used a HD Sony video camera to give the best quality footage to make our music video look more professional. It wasn't hard to use the camera the camera because it is very straight forward, it allowed us to focus on the person if we zoomed and it enhanced the lighting to match the green screening. The only problem we had with the camera was that the software was not high enough to take footage when we used a stroke light in our video.

We used a tripod to make our camera steady and this could be adjusted to any level which helped alot when we wanted to shoot low angle shots in the video.




We used a green screen for all our shots, this is a back drop which allows you to use different backgrounds when you are editing on Final Cut I found this really professional because you enhancing your knowledge on technology and how to use it. The only problem you could experience with this type of technology is that if you don't use the correct sort of lighting then the green screening will not be as effective.







We used lighting equipment for our production during the music video, this was so it created the best possible light for the green screen and character in the music video. This creates better footage on the camera with professional lighting because it highlights the figure of the character and no shadows are involved which could ruin the video. 

  We used this camera to take the photos for our print project and our planning and research stages. This camera is great because it can take fast still images and it can change the setting of atmosphere such as the lighting and background for our pictures. It took very clear shots and made our pictures live up to professional standard. However since I don't use cameras like this often I found it quite complex to use at first.







We used this 'firewire' to upload our music video and audience feedback on to the computer to post on to our blogs. We had to connect it to the camera and then the computer and then press select and then it would upload our footage, this could be done on Final Cut or iMovie, but Final Cut is a better program to use in the future. When I used 'fire wire' I found it difficult because I didnt know how to use since I was more use to using a camera cable then this one. It is difficult if you have not used one before so therefore you would need a technician to help you.







Prezi is similar to power point but more advanced technology compared to basic Microsoft programs. At first Prezi was really complicated to use since I had never used it before but after a few attempts, it becomes very easy to use. Just like Powerpoint it enables you to upload pictures and videos but unlike clicking on to the next slide like powerpoint, Prezi is like going through a mind map. Although clicking on to next piece of information can make you feel a bit sick depending on how much you have written on Prezi. I found it really useful uploading pictures and videos from youtube rather than using Microsoft powerpoint because it was a shown in good quality and less time consuming. In the top left hand corner is where all your tools are which is a lot better than powerpoint where all the tools are in different place and harder to find as well. The down side to this site is that on Prezi you can have too much information and the site refuses to save your work, therefore cutting down on how much you should write on this site. I used Prezi to produce my evaluation questions.

I used a site called 'KeepVid' to download videos from YouTube so I could use them in my director commentary. Before I used similar sites like 'KeepVid' but most took too long  to download or they were not compatiable. KeepVid is very easy site to use because all you have to do is copy and paste the link to the video into a white tab and then click download. The only problem is that sometimes it may not download the video properly and you have to try for an second attempt.

Conclusion:

After our audience feedback and our evaluated music video, there are some elements that I wish we could of done differently or improved. In our music video I would liked of filmed locations shots instead of being all studio based because it would of gave more a variety of settings and entertained our audience more since this was one of the improvements mentioned in our questionnaires. By having location shots, we could of made our video longer and not have it ended on a short note. Our story boards was not followed to plan and I would of liked to of included the foot taping and the amp scene to en lengthen the durations of the video to make the video have more cinematography and a variety of different types of scenes.  

I really did enjoyed researching, planning and evaluating my music video through the whole process. Especially using the different types of technology to produce our music video and ancillary to a professional standard. 

Our artist was the perfect choice because he acted confident towards the camera and gives the audience a more realistic affect that he is lip syncing properly and how well he performs.  

I think we did a really good job of editing and using the green screen to use different types of backgrounds. I thought the beating neon heart really fitted well with the brand image and music genre. 

Overall I think our music video progressed really well due to the amount of editing we put in since we didnt have any location shots and the amount of footage we had filmed on that day. We got all positive feedback from our audience which shows that we achieved the conventions of a music video and the conventions of a Grime music genre.