Sunday, 10 March 2013
Closing Statement
Finally we have come to the end of my blog and my work has to be carefully and concisely marked. But before, I would like to express that my A2 media project has been thoroughly enjoyed throughout and in turn has made me develop a wide array of skills in media. It has also enabled me to showcase my creativity in numerous ways and influenced me to do more media related tasks in my spare time. I hope you have really enjoyed looking at my blog as much as I did creating it and overall discovered the hard work and effort I put into it. Thank you.
Final Music Video
As apart of our, promotional package for the release of an album I have created a Music Promo video for our artist Big Quan.
Final Website
As apart of our, promotional package for the release of an album I created a Website for our artist Big Quan. Below is the link to our website:
http://lbenjaminf.wix.com/bigquanofficial
http://lbenjaminf.wix.com/bigquanofficial
Final Digipak
As apart of our, promotional package for the release of an album I created a digipak for our artist Big Quan.
Evaluation Q4
Below is brainstorm of all the different media technologies that I have used in my A2 media project. Whilst being familiar with some of them, I faced the challenge of using new media technologies which in turn developed my skills further.
AS TO A2
In AS I personally think I was
an amateur in the world of media because it was a brand new topic to me that I
had never studied before. However, I knew it was going to be interesting from the
products I had seen. It also would allow me to showcase my creativity in
another subject other than art. Therefore, I was happy to be taking on board
something new because I felt I would learn a lot of skills through using
different equipment and media technologies. Throughout the AS year I began
using blogger, slide share, Final Cut Express, Prezi as well as the dominant
technologies such as YouTube and Google. Out of all the different media
technologies, I found Final Cut Express the hardest because not only is there
various stuff that you can do on it, but numerous ways of operating it to
create an advanced edited piece of work. Despite of this, I was able to edit
our final opening sequence to the best of my ability. At the beginning, the
coursework for AS was manageable nevertheless it became a challenge due to the
fact that there was a lot more work that was needed in order for it to be good.
The hardest part to the coursework was however the evaluation which came as a
great surprise because it was detailed and time consuming. Overall, I learnt a
lot of effective skills that I carried with me into A2 – in particular
preparation skills and finishing tasks. After
reflecting on my AS coursework and comparing it to my A2 coursework which was
greatly in depth and required a lot more dedication I discovered I had made a
lot of progress throughout all my work and showcased my ability much better.
For A2, the brief was a
promotional package for
the release of an album, which consisted of us creating a music promo video. It
also required us to make a website homepage for the band and a CD cover for its
release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package). I took interest in this task
because I felt that making a video would be an exciting task that would allow
all the members of my group to showcase their interests and ideas. It would
also bring out a lot of creativity skills from myself in particular because I
like to create things by constructing images, text, music and videos into one.
Research
After
Preproduction, we did another set of research on our ancillary tasks.
The first
ancillary task I researched into was the digipak which required me to explain
what it was and analyse the examples are teachers provided for us. I found them
really interesting to look at and was excited to produce one of my own. Other
student’s digipak also influenced me to come up with different ideas such as
using Photoshop to edit pictures. Two of these tasks were presented on Microsoft
PowerPoint because it was a good software to present my research on in a clear
and detailed way. To show other students digipaks I used Prezi because I could
show all what I needed on one page rather than on numerous slides. Although
Prezi takes long I still felt this media technology presents work in an
effective way. Lastly, I uploaded my work on slide share which is a quick and
easy process to work.
The first
ancillary task I researched into was the digipak which required me to explain
what it was and analyse the examples are teachers provided for us. I found them
really interesting to look at and was excited to produce one of my own. Other
student’s digipak also influenced me to come up with different ideas such as
using Photoshop to edit pictures. Two of these tasks were presented on Microsoft
PowerPoint because it was a good software to present my research on in a clear
and detailed way. To show other students digipaks I used Prezi because I could
show all what I needed on one page rather than on numerous slides. Although
Prezi takes long I still felt this media technology presents work in an
effective way. Lastly, I uploaded my work on slide share which is a quick and
easy process to work.
For
the next two tasks which consisted of researching into album covers, I decided
to use Mixbook because I liked the enhanced way of presenting ideas - which I
discovered from one of my peers. Much like all technologies that you have never
used before, adapting to it and discovering how to navigate through it, is
always a long process. Nonetheless, I felt I was keen on figuring out how to
use this software to my advantage and produce effective work. After completing
these tasks, I was very happy with how it looked as well as proud of what
skills I had obtained which would come as a benefit in future tasks.
I
found researching into websites really interesting because it allowed me to see
how music genres influenced the way a website was presented. All that I
discovered from researching this task was very detailed, and so I used
Microsoft PowerPoint to present my discoveries.
Production
In our group, we made a decision to split the pre-production tasks between us in order to get the work done in a quicker time. We also made it fair by choosing a mixture of easy, detailed and long winded tasks. I chose to complete the idea treatment, moodboard, risk assessment, crew requirements, contingency plan and artist logo. For each of these tasks I used a variety of media technologies such as Word, Prezi, Mixbook and a Samsung Galaxy camera phone to take pictures on. As a group, we all helped to create a casting for our music video which was really fun because it gave us the opportunity to do some practical work with the camera. I edited the casting using Final Cut Express which took a very long time because I had to cut out unnecessary footage and amend faults by adding transitions and so forth to the timeline. During this task, I learnt how to add music from YouTube on to Final Cut Express and effectively make the footage flow. Overall the Pre-production stage of the task took long but I benefited from it by developing my skills.
In our group, we made a decision to split the pre-production tasks between us in order to get the work done in a quicker time. We also made it fair by choosing a mixture of easy, detailed and long winded tasks. I chose to complete the idea treatment, moodboard, risk assessment, crew requirements, contingency plan and artist logo. For each of these tasks I used a variety of media technologies such as Word, Prezi, Mixbook and a Samsung Galaxy camera phone to take pictures on. As a group, we all helped to create a casting for our music video which was really fun because it gave us the opportunity to do some practical work with the camera. I edited the casting using Final Cut Express which took a very long time because I had to cut out unnecessary footage and amend faults by adding transitions and so forth to the timeline. During this task, I learnt how to add music from YouTube on to Final Cut Express and effectively make the footage flow. Overall the Pre-production stage of the task took long but I benefited from it by developing my skills.
Planning
Planning
was a very consistent part of my media project because I always found myself
planning what work I had to do, how I was going to do it, what I needed to put
in it and lastly how I was going to present it. I did however enjoy it because
I have a passion to write and organise what I’m going to do in my work to make
it showcase my abilities in the best way possible.
Planning
the ancillary tasks involved a lot of writing, drawing and ideas being put
forward which in all was very strenuous. In our group we all gave our ideas on
what we wanted to include which was presented on Bubbl.us (a brainstorm
creating website) and Prezi – to give a more in depth explanation of our ideas.
To complete the digipak and website tasks, we split the work in to two which
resulted in Chloe and Shannon planning and creating the digipak whilst I took
on the role of planning and creating the website. 
Majority
of the website planning tasks were illustrated using PowerPoint because I
already was an advanced user of the software and was ensured that it would show
my work clearly. For the design sketches, I used the same process as the
digipak to show our ideas. Whilst using PowerPoint for our photographs, I
discovered a vast amount of editing techniques that I could use on pictures.
This consisted of changing the picture style, brightness, contrast and so forth
to improve the picture. One of the most effective media technologies that I
used for the photograph plans was Instagram. Instagram is
an online social network whereby you can share a series of photos with your
friends and others as well as edit it by choosing a filter to transform the
image. I thought this was a good media technology to use because it’s a very
popular app on Android and I Phones that will in turn increase our publicity.
It also allows you to enhance pictures in a really effective way. Another
popular app I used via the I phone was Pic jointer which was a collage creator.
As I was already familiar with using these apps (on a daily basis) it was quick
and easy to transform one single image. I did however discover the effect of
re-editing a picture to enhance the appearance even further – which was very
helpful.
To
make our final ancillary tasks Chloe and I used Adobe Photoshop (for the
digipak) and WiX (for the website). Photoshop is a very complex website that
has the ability to create a number of things however being able to use each option
to its advantage is very hard. Nonetheless, Chloe created a really good digipak
which contained all the vital aspects to a digipak. Rather than using Weebly
(another website creator), I chose to use a more complex website creator called
WiX which allowed me to have flexibility over what I indented to produce on
each web page. To begin with I found it extremely hard to use and actually
found myself giving up. However after using the website everyday for a week I
gained a wide range of skills in terms of how to make my website meet the
conventions of a typical website. From using WiX I learnt how to do the
following: link pictures to web pages, incorporate music and videos on to the
website, insert links to social networks and websites as well as many more
interesting discoveries. In all, I really enjoyed using WiX because it brought
out my creative side and allowed me to discover and do things that I never
thought I was capable of doing.
Evaluation
This year, the evaluation
consisted of four questions rather than seven which every one pleased at. Even so the four questions did require us to
showcase all that we had learnt in depth as well as how our skills had
developed over the two years. To begin with I used Microsoft Word to answer all
my questions on so that I could maintain a high content standard that was
essential in order for it to be answered well. I then made a decision to
present my answers using all different media technologies. For question 1 I did
a voice recording of my answer which I incorporated into Final Cut Express. I
also added pictures and music videos to this which once again developed my skills
because I learnt how to remove sound out of the video. For Question 2, I presented
it using a new media technology called Glogster. I found this really fun to use
because it was presented in a colourful and fun way which motivated me to use
it more. For question 3, we used Survey Monkey to construct our questionnaire
as well as Microsoft PowerPoint and Slideshare to present it. We also filmed people
using a Samsung Galaxy phone and uploaded it via YouTube. For question 4, I added
my information and pictures onto Blogger.
The A2 coursework proved to be a
big step up from my AS coursework because the work load had increased immensely
from the start and the commitment needed to be in place. Throughout the
project, as a group we had days whereby we felt over challenged and lacked the
will to do work. However, reflecting over A2 coursework and seeing how far we
had already came enabled us to strive to do better and kept us motivated. We
also motivated one another to do well with consistent feedback, interaction and
support. I felt that I tackled the overall task as best as I could but also believed
with better time management my work could have been to a higher standard as
there is always room for improvement.
Evaluation Q3
Using Survey Monkey we created a questionnaire that was made up of 10 questions. From this, we accumulated a good amount of audience feedback which was beneficial because we obtained what was good, bad and needed to be developed further.
Below is the second part to question three.
Evaluation Q2
Below is the answer to the first part of question two, which I have done on Glogster:
Overall I think our products will be easily identifiable to our audience because there is a consistency that we have tried to keep up in order for it to be recognisable and eye-catching by our target audience. This consists of our colour scheme, use of pictures, font, logo (in particular) and so forth. After researching into different websites as well as taking into consideration what I already know, I found one artist group whose products were highly identifiable and that was MMG. MMG which stands for Maybach Music Group is a hip hop music group that is made up of a number of artists of this genre. Over the years, their logo has become very iconic because it has been featured on their album covers, website and at the start of every music videos. This inspired my group to incorporate a similar idea into our music video at the start as well as on the website and digipak. In all, I think this will be very effective in the long run because this small symbolic icon will be memorable. In my opinion, I think my group and I did really well taking into account we had never done anything like this before. Despite it being a challenge throughout and very time consuming, I still believe we able to take on the tasks with determination and support from each member in the group.
Out of all three tasks, I think the ancillary tasks were most successful because they were well presented due to the careful and concise planning that we put into them. From researching into album covers, digipaks and websites, we also obtained a better view of what needed to be included in our ancillary tasks. Our digipak was made up of 6 panels that included pictures, our logo, disk tray, the artist’s signature, credits and lyrics page. However, I would have liked to include a disk tray for a dvd which would have made it more interesting. Despite of this, I was happy with how my group member Chloe constructed it. The website was created by myself, in which I was very happy and proud of. Yet, I did have my doubts because it was very hard to operate at first and at times I gave up on it because I felt I didn’t have the ability to do it. My group members were however very supportive as well as consistent on making sure I finished it which did help. When I finally finished creating my website that contained all the elements that I personally intended it to have, I was very satisfied and felt that I had made a good contribution to the group. Moreover, it met the conventions desired because I constantly referred to other websites of my genre and others throughout the construction process.
In contrast, the music video wasn’t as successful as I visualised it to be because it lacked some of the typical conventions you would see in an R’n’B and Hip-Hop music video as well as that overall exciting feel that you get when watching a music video of my genre. My video was perhaps one that would need a lot more footage and shot types in order for it to be a good flowing video. I also think the lip synching could have been improved for the reason that it wasn’t 100% in sync with the song which in turn showed a delay in the way he performed and what was being heard. On the other hand, if we had more practice or had a chance to do a video again, I believe it will be a lot more successful as we would have learnt from our mistakes and worked on it so that it could be better. Despite of the negative aspects to our video, I do however feel that there was a lot of effort put into the filming and editing but it just didn’t achieve or meet the high expectations I had for it. To conclude all our tasks reached the brief that was set for us which was our main goal.
Overall I think our products will be easily identifiable to our audience because there is a consistency that we have tried to keep up in order for it to be recognisable and eye-catching by our target audience. This consists of our colour scheme, use of pictures, font, logo (in particular) and so forth. After researching into different websites as well as taking into consideration what I already know, I found one artist group whose products were highly identifiable and that was MMG. MMG which stands for Maybach Music Group is a hip hop music group that is made up of a number of artists of this genre. Over the years, their logo has become very iconic because it has been featured on their album covers, website and at the start of every music videos. This inspired my group to incorporate a similar idea into our music video at the start as well as on the website and digipak. In all, I think this will be very effective in the long run because this small symbolic icon will be memorable. In my opinion, I think my group and I did really well taking into account we had never done anything like this before. Despite it being a challenge throughout and very time consuming, I still believe we able to take on the tasks with determination and support from each member in the group.
Out of all three tasks, I think the ancillary tasks were most successful because they were well presented due to the careful and concise planning that we put into them. From researching into album covers, digipaks and websites, we also obtained a better view of what needed to be included in our ancillary tasks. Our digipak was made up of 6 panels that included pictures, our logo, disk tray, the artist’s signature, credits and lyrics page. However, I would have liked to include a disk tray for a dvd which would have made it more interesting. Despite of this, I was happy with how my group member Chloe constructed it. The website was created by myself, in which I was very happy and proud of. Yet, I did have my doubts because it was very hard to operate at first and at times I gave up on it because I felt I didn’t have the ability to do it. My group members were however very supportive as well as consistent on making sure I finished it which did help. When I finally finished creating my website that contained all the elements that I personally intended it to have, I was very satisfied and felt that I had made a good contribution to the group. Moreover, it met the conventions desired because I constantly referred to other websites of my genre and others throughout the construction process.
In contrast, the music video wasn’t as successful as I visualised it to be because it lacked some of the typical conventions you would see in an R’n’B and Hip-Hop music video as well as that overall exciting feel that you get when watching a music video of my genre. My video was perhaps one that would need a lot more footage and shot types in order for it to be a good flowing video. I also think the lip synching could have been improved for the reason that it wasn’t 100% in sync with the song which in turn showed a delay in the way he performed and what was being heard. On the other hand, if we had more practice or had a chance to do a video again, I believe it will be a lot more successful as we would have learnt from our mistakes and worked on it so that it could be better. Despite of the negative aspects to our video, I do however feel that there was a lot of effort put into the filming and editing but it just didn’t achieve or meet the high expectations I had for it. To conclude all our tasks reached the brief that was set for us which was our main goal.
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
Evaluation Q1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Below I have shown my answer to question one through a Youtube video:
Design Sketches
Rough Design Sketches
To begin with I created a number of design sketches for each of the pages of my website. My ideas were influenced from my own general knowledge and what I throught would look good.
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| About Page & News Page |
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| Music Page & Connect Page |
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| Gallery Page |
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| Lyrics & Connect Page |
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| Store Page |
Final Design Sketches
These are all my final design sketches for my website. Whilst some are similar to my rough design sketches, others contrast greatly because of the influence I had from other websites. Next to each picture, I have disclosed briefly what each page features.
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| Enter Page |
- Enter Button
- Artist Logo
- Picture of Big Quan
- His Name
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| Home Page |
- Header: His Name and Menu Bar
Advertisement of his newsletter, tumblr, pinterest new debut album and single
- Latest News
- Music Playlist
- Connect Section to numerous social networks
- Various Links to Buy the single and tickets for the tour
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| Biography Page |
- Header: His Name and Menu Bar
- Information about Big Quan
- Pictures of Big Quan
(relating to everything written on the page)
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| News Page |
- Advertisement of his Brand New Album
- Current and previous News
- Future Events Section - Tour, New Single and music video
- Various Links to Buy the single and tickets for the tour
- Connect Section to numerous social networks
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| Music Page |
- Header: His Name and Menu Bar
- Advertisement of his brand new album
- Listing of all his albums & single as well as Exclusive songs
- Link to Buy the Music Online
- Playlist of the album
- Pictures of artists he's worked with
- Connect section to numerous social networks
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| Gallery Page |
This Page includes the following:
- Header: His Name and Menu Bar
- A number of pictures of Big Quan whereby he is shown at interivews, backstage of shows, photo shoot, performances, concerts and in the studio. There is also edited pictures of him.
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| Videos Page |
This Page includes the following:
- Header: His Name and Menu Bar
- Pictures of Big Quan
- Music Video of his hit new single 'Always on my mind'
- A number of videos such as his music videos, interviews, performances, concerts, on the radio, backstage footage and behind the scenes of his new hit single.
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| Connect Page |
This Page includes the following:
- Header: His Name and Menu Bar
- Picturs of Big Quan
- Connect section to numerous social networks
- Online Blog
- Advertisement of his brand new album, upcoming tour and newsletter
 |
| Store Page |
This Page includes the following:
- Header: His Name and Menu Bar
- Advertisement of the release of his Brand New Album
- Connect section to numerous social networks
- Titles of all the different merchandise he sells
- Pictures of all of his merchandise and the prices
 |
| Lyrics Page |
This Page includes the following:
- Header: His Name and Menu Bar
- Advertisement of his brand new album, newsletter, tumblr and Pinterest
- Lyrics to his new hit single 'Always on my mind'
- Listing of all his albums and songs
- His new album picture and the tracklist
- Connect section to numerous social networks  |
| Newsletter Page |
This Page includes the following:
- Header: His Name and Menu Bar
- Advertisement to sign up to his News Letter
- Sign Up section to his newsletter
- Advertisement of his brand new album and merchandise
- Connect section to numerous social networks Page Flow Diagram
This is the Page Flow Diagram that I produced to show what pages will link to one another on the web page.
Colour Scheme & Font Ideas
This is the colour scheme and font that we have on our digipak. We also intend to have these same plans used for our website.
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Ideas Brainstorm
Below are all the plans I have for the website. However, as I go along some ideas may be developed or changed.
Websites of My Genre
Another research task, I had to undergo was researching into websites of my own genre. Below is a presentation showing two artists websites that I have analysed.
Website Research - Analysis of Genre Websites from LarelleShay
I found this task highly beneficial because it broaden my imagination in terms of ideas, for the website.
I found this task highly beneficial because it broaden my imagination in terms of ideas, for the website.
Evaluation of A2 Students Website
Whilst researching into existing artists websites, I also had to evaluate other A2 students website. I think it was good that I researched this because it allowed me to see what other students who are doing the same course as me were doing, their ideas and the capabilities of producing a website. The website creator they used was called Wix and was really effective. Therefore,I'm going to use the same software becuase I've seen how advanced it is. It also will allow me to show my creative skills that has developed throughout my media course.
Evaluation of a2 students media website from LarelleShay
Note - Due to the downloading process of my file, some pages have duplicated by accident. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Note - Due to the downloading process of my file, some pages have duplicated by accident. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Website Analysis & Explanation
Below are my findings, after researching into numerous websites that vary in genre.
Construction Steps
Below is a presentation of the construction steps of our digipak.
Digipak Construction Steps by clwp_cloe06
Digipak Construction Steps by clwp_cloe06
Test Photographs
Here is another contact sheet of the test photographs we done of our artist. We intend to use a number of these photographs on our website.
Test Photos by shannontiana
Test Photos by shannontiana
Photograph Plans
Below is a number of pictures that we have taken to be used for our ancillary tasks.
My group and I choose the best photographs to put on a contact sheet and as you can see we have used a range of shots and angles of our artist. This gives us a variety to choose from when creating our digipak to begin with.
Here is the photo plans that we have made for our digipak.
My group and I choose the best photographs to put on a contact sheet and as you can see we have used a range of shots and angles of our artist. This gives us a variety to choose from when creating our digipak to begin with.
Here is the photo plans that we have made for our digipak.
Colour Scheme Ideas & Font Ideas
In the presentation below, I have shown the colour scheme and font ideas that we intend to use in our digipak.
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Additional Artist Logo Designs
We chose to create additional artist logo designs, so that we could have a variety of designs to choose from. These are shown in the PowerPoint below:
Logo designs from clwp_cloe06
Album Covers of your genre
Again using Mixbook, I have analysed four very different album covers of my genre which is RnB and Hip-Hop. This research came as a benefit because it gave me a number of ideas for the album cover that I was going to make.
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