Evaluation

Media evaluation for A2 Media 2014 from ChristinaStier

Video for slide 5.

Audience Feedback

For my audience feedback i took an opportunity sample of the target audience. These consisted of 6 people (3 females and 3 males) from the age of 17 to 18.

The following questions were presented to them after showing them all my products: 

1. Does the colour scheme throughout the ancillary tasks work?
2. Do all the elements work together?
3. Do you think that the ancillary tasks promote the band effectively? Why?
4. Name two impressive/interesting elements from the ancillary tasks.
5. Could these products be stronger? Which parts? Why and how could it be improved?
6. Could you sum up the brand of this band through the digipack and the website in a short sentence?
7. What created this brand image?
8. What is your overall opinion of the music video?
9. Did it keep your attention?
10. Is there anything that you specifically did not like in the music video?
11. What did you think of the footage quality?
12. After seeing all the products, do you think that you would look up this band further?

Analyzing my results (i will address the questions by their numbers given above):

1. 

As it is shown above, from my audience feedback, they said that the colour scheme did indeed work in my ancillary tasks. One person even identified that the main colour was grey. 

I am very happy with this result as this is what i wanted to achieve, and i do also agree that the colour scheme works together.

2.

Again, shown above are my results. For the most part (5 people) said that the elements worked together. No one said that they didn't work together. However one person answered this question with "Mostly" and added that the reason for this would be that there could have been more detail.

I do completely agree that there could have always been more detail, but overall i am quite happy as to how the elements of my ancillary tasks worked together. 

3.

Once again, all answers to this question were answered with "yes". The reasons given, were that they showcase the band well, therefore the style of the band was visible and because of this, the genre is identifiable. Other reasons were that my ancillary tasks related to each other and another reason was that it promoted the band effectively because it was easy to navigate and find the band material. 

I am really happy with these results as this is what i tried to achieve with my ancillary tasks. I am glad that these two tasks showcased the band well.

4.

The majority of the answers about what people liked of my ancillary tasks came from my website. The most given answer was that the website was easy to use. They also said that my website has a good layout/design, it looks good and it included the right information.

The second most given answer was about my CD cover. The comments included that it had an interesting album art due to the image and the name of the album being related to each other, that it has a simplistic form of layout and that its design was good.

For the mention of the back Cd cover it said that it looked very professionally made. And the grayscale was mentioned, which of course matched the answer of question number 1.

I found it quite impressive myself that people really seemed impressed with my website. I was also not expecting to see such good things about my CD cover. 

5.

One person only, said that my products needed no improvement. Of course i am very happy about this, but i do think that my products didn't come out perfectly.

5 people said that there could be elements that could have been stronger. These included that the back cover could have been more eye-catchy and that it lacked some details, the website could have been a bit more detailed, the front cover image was a bit too blurry/not focused. 

I feel that these are very valid comments and i do agree with them. If these products were to actually be launched for the band, these details and improvements would definitely have to be made.

6.

6/6

All of the people identified that this was a rock band just by my ancillary tasks. This obviously makes me very content and i am glad that i have achieved this through my ancillary tasks.

7.

One person identified the main brand of this band came from the CD cover and 5 people identified the logo as being the main brand.

I am glad that the majority said the logo was a big focus point because i feel that too. I tried to include the logo as much as possible in my ancillary tasks so that this band could be recognized by it. I am also happy that one answer was the CD cover, because this would have been my second choice personally.

8.

For the overall opinion of my music video i got ratings from very good to good. The "other" part refers to comments i got. These said that my music video was simple but effective and the other comment noticed that it had shown inspiration from the music video "don't stop me now" by Queen.

9.

                                    6/6

This question was answered "yes" by all people. I am very happy that my music video managed to keep the attention of the audience as this shows that it does have qualities.

10.

Again, i am glad that some people thought that there was nothing that they specifically did not like. For 2 of the other 4 their issue were some lip syncing issues. They showed me where they were and i mentioned these problems when i posted my music video. These really small lip sync issues occurred during rendering, as well as a skip (a drummer part) which was also mentioned by someone else. And the fourth person said that there were not enough close ups of the instruments during the video. Personally i do not think that this is a major issue. I feel like i have balanced close ups and shots of the entire band well.

11.

                        

                                     6/6

For my quality of my music video i got a full "very good" from everyone. As i showed them the 720p version (the very high quality version) of my music video this was exactly the response that i wanted to hear as i made sure that at least my sample audience would be able to see my music video in its full quality.

12.

Yes!

And for my final survey question, i am very glad that all of them would look up this band after seeing all my products. I'm happy that i have achieved such a good response from my sample audience.

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Attachments:

My finished music video

This is my finalized music video.
I think that this video does look pretty good. What i most referenced back to, was my research on the rock genre. I kept this simple, no added effects, cuts to the beat, showcasing the whole band, giving focus to the lead singer. I feel that i have done a pretty good job in lip syncing too, considering that there was a lot of it there.

However there are some noticeable faults on this version. Due to rendering this video (changing it from a project into a mp4 file) i wasn't able to render it at a higher quality because I wouldn't have been able to upload it onto this blog. As well as a skip at 1:04 (the drum part) and lip syncing changes at 1:11 and 1:59 for a few split seconds were caused by rendering.

Something that made me struggle though, was to keep myself to the storyboard. I sort of managed to do it for around the first half of the music video but during the second half it was very difficult due to me not having filmed the exact parts that i indicated on the storyboard (as in i filmed the close ups, however at a different timing therefore i wasn't able to put the clip in as planned in my storyboard).

Finalized Website

http://sleepingserenity.wix.com/sleepingserenity

This is the home page of the website. Since the draft i have added a "latest news" section, the idea with this is that the latest "article" would appear on the homepage so that this would not only make the page less bland but it would immediately add a piece of information.

I also added the tour/appearance dates on the bottom as it is piece of information that the audience/fans are always looking for.

From my draft i have also change the image as i took off the lettering that was on the actual image and put it in the description of the image with appears once you hover over it.

This is the main info page, because it was so bland at first, i thought that adding a way for fans and band to communicate would work great since that is what the band's relationship towards fans should be like. 

The biography is not filled in yet because this would have been a section of the website which would be totally up to the band as to what information about them they would want to tell.  

This is the "latest news" section. Here i have added some more articles that would have featured if this website would actually feature for the band. 

This is the "tour" section in which i have added the same tour calendar as the home page one. 

This page gives information/detail on the most recent upcoming performance and then gives the fans/audience a small indication of their next performances.

The "music" section for this website is quite different to my draft. I found the draft very bland and that it had no resemblance to an actual website at all. 

Therefore i added spotify links on the side which would equal to the songs that are on the album, i put the older songs at the bottom to give relevance to this new album, i gave the fans an outline as to where they could purchase this new album and i also added a iTunes link as this is a very popular website to obtain songs from the internet.

And where it says "edited video inserted here" is where my edited music video would have gone, however due to uploading issues i was not able to upload it to the website.

Finalized Digipack (CD cover)

This is my finalized front cover for the album. i feel that with the title of the album that the band chose ("visions"), it works well. I feel as this is very simple but yet it captures attention.
It contains popular conventions from front covers, such as the logo, band name, album name, and that the image of the cover somehow relates to the album or the band.
I think that although i like it, it MIGHT have been a little out of the box and a bit too adventurous for me, therefore i feel that i haven't portrayed my idea to the fullest due to some lack of skills with image editing.

This is the back cover. i am very happy with the outcome of this. It contains the simple conventions of having the track list, the copyright paragraph, a bar code and the sides which fold to the sides of the hard copy of the CD. I feel like this ties in with the front cover due to its colour and the same font for its track list being used.

This is the gatefold for the CD. i broke convention here by not adding the lyrics of the song mentioned in the tracklist. However i feel like this gives the CD much more personality and gives the audience some kind of incentive as this would only be available for the hard copy of the CD. The gatefold contain images from the first and second shooting session, therefore the audience would also get images that they had never seen before.

Analyzing my second shoot

These are some of my wide shots. I am very glad that for my second shoot I obtain a more varied number of shots. This is great because when it comes to editing my music video i will have multiple shot in which i can keep my audience more engaged due to it not being too repetitive my using the same angle multiple times. As well as this time around i got some hand held wide shots as opposed to only still camera being used in my first shoot, this also increased my variety.

Here is one example of a shot (bottom one) which i didn't notice a problem of even in my first shoot. This problem was that the projector is in shot. I only realized this at my second shoot because this time i checked a bit of the clip out before moving onto the next shot. This enabled me to solve my problem quickly, by simply moving the camera and zooming in more which in turn helped because it made the shot more focused on the band rater than there being a lot of space around them which could end up being a distraction.

These are some of my close up shots. I felt that the obvious main feature of the guitarist is the guitar itself (#2). Therefore close ups of this were my main focus for him. For the bassist, once again, the bass is the main feature(#1). And for the drummer i felt that the close up of the drum would be suitable and i thought that maybe the rhythm of the foot would be a nice close up (#3).

I felt that the cut-in shots for these three band members worked very well because it shows detail and it is quite interesting to look at: 

#1

#2

#3

As this is the lead singer i tried to focus quite a bit on him. I felt that in my second shoot i managed to get a very good variety of shots ranging from medium shot, medium close up shot, close up shot and extreme close up shot. However during shooting, in each take, i always went between the band members and shot the close ups. I feel that with the lead singer i should have spent one whole take on him in order to be able to include him in the music video a lot more. I think this will be a drawback in my music video as there is no more time to do another shoot.

Evaluation of the shoot (2)

• What worked:

-This time i definitely stuck to the timing frame. I did as i was supposed to and got all of the shots i wanted. Including close ups of each band member.

-This time around the rehearsal in the theater were finished earlier which meant we had much more time to set up all the equipment. Due to this we also had time to bring over some amplifiers from the music department to create a more full stage.

-Due to me having more time i also managed to bring in the technician to check if i had put the lighting on correctly in order for me to make sure that everything would work to plan.

-I think that as this was my second shoot i was much more comfortable and less worried/stressed about this therefore i was much more relaxed which enabled me to correct some mistakes of the last shoot. This made me get better shots and made me improve in my technique.

• What didn't work:

-We spend some time working out which cables would be there in order for me to play the song for them to perform in sync. When i got the technician i forgot to check with him about the sound because i thought that the correct cables were already there (which they obviously weren't). But fortunately we figured it out in the end.

I think that due to this being the second shoot i was able to correct my last mistakes and therefore not making almost any mistakes this time.

Re-shoot (2)

• Aims

To improve my camera technique and get good shots of the band performing.

Get all the shots necessary.

Be concise and constructive. 

• Locations

The school theater.

• Personel

The band (Conor, Rob, Sam, Dan)
Me
Leah (i have asked one of my friends to be there so whilst i am shooting she could take some behind the scene pictures/films that i can include in my conclusion after)

• Equipment

Camera
SD cards
Tripod
Drum set
Guitars
Microphone stand and microphone
The soft light kit

• Date and times

February 4th 2014
As last time i will be preparing until 5.30 when the other band member arrives. However this time should there be no school production rehearsal i will start to set up the stage (including the soft light set and the drum kit).

• Other considerations

I had the idea to put the band's logo on the drum set, therefore if i have time i will make a cut-out of the logo beforehand.

I will have to go over the 3 point lighting theory.

And on the Monday before (3rd Feb 2014) i will stay in the theater to properly choose the main stage lights that im going to use on the shoot.

Sleeping Serenity's CD Digipack

The thought process:

• I was just brain storming ideas for this first and i started with the colour scheme. I thought that for rock the instant colour that comes to mind is black therefore i feel that black, grey, white and red would go well together.
• As the background is the one with more surface area i feel that either black or grey should be the focus. However as the logo is black it could also be white or grey as long as black is included heavily around it.
• The logo and the band name WILL definitely be included. And with this i was thinking that is should coordinate with the website.
• As i got together with the vocalist we browsed through the google images with some rough ideas and came up with some designs:

- As the song is called Tommy gun we came up with a bullet. Therefore what we were imagining was that on the front cover there would be an entry wound and in the back cover the penetration wound with the bullet casing opn the bottom with smoke coming out of it.

We didn't look at this image, however this gives an idea of what we were thinking.

- As we were brousing around the internet we found an eye with some sort of embeded symbol in it. Which therefore we came up with the idea to have an eye and then their band logo as a reflection in that eye.

This was the image that we found and taht we got insipred by for this particular idea

- Another thing that we found were thorns. We thought that maybe a thorn frame and just the simple logo and band name in the middle could also work.

This was the image that inspired me in particular. I felt that maybe if this image were also mirrored upwards then there would be a white middle in which the logo could go.

Drafts:

This was my first attempt at our favourite idea. I faded their logo into the pupil of the eye. I think this worked quite well because the logo is quite darker then the pupil however it still kept the reflection effect. The only thing that is missing in this is the band's name and the album's name. We thought that the band and album name should either go along the water line of the eye or be morphed to the eye (as in the band name would be morphed left side of the pupil making the lettering going up and the album name would be morphed to the right side making the lettering going upwards).

This is the second draft of the front CD cover. As said previously what needed to be added (the name of the band) i have completed now. In my opinion this does work very well and i think that it does look very unique yet simple. The only thing missing now is the album name on which the band told me that their chosen name was "Visions".  

This is my first draft of Sleeping Serenity's back cover. I chose to have a simple grey background with some fading  in order to give a slight depth to it. I think that the original logo should be on it and therefore that is what i did. I included a bar code and a copyright paragraph as they are conventions for Cd digipacks as i researched this before.

This is my second draft of the back cover for the digipack. On the previous draft i completely forgot about my CD Cover Preparation and i found that i forgot the sides of the back cover that bend to the sides of the CD. I think that so far it does look pretty good and goes with the front cover. The only thing that is needed now, is to add the track list.

Sleeping Serenity's First Draft of the Website

First draft:

This is the first draft of the home page. It includes the bands logo and name at the top which is linked to always appear on the top of the website and it will always take you to the home page. Then there are sub titles/links which change colour as the cursor is over it. These links are "Home", "Info", "Gallery", "Music" and "Tour". 

Below the links there is a slide show which at the moment contains/advertises the link to a story that is in the "Latest News"section and a link to the "Tour" page which advertises their upcoming performance. 

At the footer of the page it includes a small copyright phrase and the link/button to get to the band's Facebook page which always appear regardless on which section of the page you are.

When the cursor is over the "Info" sub link, a drop down bar shows and the options "biography" and "latest news" appear. When the "Info" sub link is clicked the page on the top right appears. I wanted this page not to be there so that one could just choose between either of the drop down options but unfortunately that isn't possible. Therefor when the info page is clicked i just put two links as text which will lead them to the drop down option as i have no other idea or use for just the info page. For it to not be that bland i added a picture of the band to relate everything together.
I have not yet edited all the texts, i have only made a rough guideline for me to fill in everything in time.

This is the "Gallery" page. Once you click on the "Gallery" sub link you get to this page. This contains pictures taken by a professional photographer (which i got permission from to include these in the website) at the band's concert at the last Rocks Green. When the pictures are clicked they enlarge in order to get a better look at them. Below all the pictures i have advertised the photographer and included his Twitter and Facebook link. 

When "Music" is clicked, it takes you to this page. Here i have included videos from the band performing at one of their previous concerts.  I have left the first one empty as i have not yet finished my music video completely and that's where it is supposed to go.

This is the page that you will get to when clicking on the "Tour" sub link. This contains information about their next gigs and links to the school (the venue of the concert) and again i put the link of the band to encourage people visiting this page to follow the band for more updates.

Comments:

I think that a few obvious things need changing. And some things are good.

• For the slide show in the home page i think the pictures need a bit of changing as they aren't that nice to look at, i think that maybe just text with a small picture would work much better.
• The home page itself is simple, which is good. But it almost seems too simple. Therefore i feel that it from my research i could take the sign up feature which would give the fans a way to further communicate and keep up to date with the band. Obviously for this media project it will only be visually, but should the band choose to use this design, this feature would actually be activated.
• I also noticed that as i had the cursor on the image/link for their upcoming performance, the title of the image appears. I will have to delete that.
• I think that the whole of the info section does look good. Therefore i intend to keep it this way, however i will obviously add information/text.
• I also think that the Gallery section is good, however i think that i might add the link to the photographer's actual webpage too.
• I feel that the "Music" section looks good. However i feel that maybe i should include links (again, not actually activated yet) to where the song could be bought digitally or the actual hard copy of the CD.
• The "Tour" section does look a bit bland. However there are no more concerts that this band will have (that they know of) so for this media project i think that i will make up some appearances to show how the page would look if it actually were to be launched for this band.
• I feel that all the links i have included for promotion to the band, the photographer and the school give this website more credibility. 

Some of these features will be "fake" for the purpose of appearance. Because this website is supposed to show how it would look if this website would actually be officially launched for the band.

Research on websites

Shown above i pointed out the key features of this website of the band Royal Republic.

  At a first look (as i like this band too) i can tell that this very much goes with their theme and what they are about. The colour scheme fits in perfectly with them producing synergy with the other products such as at least one of their albums.

  This structure of the website is very simplistic and easy, again, following the rock theme. Everything here is very neat and organised, so that it attracts audience. 

  Although the links to the categories are mostly already in the home page i think that it is still a good idea for them to be there in order to not give the audience everything (information) at once, this encourages to audience to still click on the links in order to find even more information.

  For myself and for the webpage i will be creating for my band, i think that the best features in this particular website are the links to different categories, the upcoming performances section and the recent news/stories on the band.

This is the webpage for the band The Specktators.

  This webpage also very much represents the band and their audience, This webpage is very quirky and original.

  As shown above it is also very simplistic and very easy to use. I found it interesting that the first thing when clicking on their link was that it came up with an immediate advertisement to buy their song and to purchase tickets for their upcoming tour. This is obviously very clever because it is the first thing that one sees therefore you can't just "forget" to purchase tickets or their song when just browsing through the website first.

  I find it very nice in this website that everything is organised, so you will only click on what you really want instead of looking through the homepage first and then find what you want. It is all well labeled  therefore with no struggle you can go to what you want immediately.

  Synergy is also created here as their logo is on top of the page at all times which is obviously also included in their digipack.