Evaluation Q4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages.

Evaluation Question 4

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Evaluation Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

During the stages of the production feedback was essential in order to gauge the target audiences thoughts and opinions on different ideas about what connotations they associate with the alternative rock genre and what we as a group could do to build these connotations into our production in order to create a familiar product.


At the early stages of planning after deciding on a genre a possible genre of alternative rock we gave out a questionnaires. The first questionnaire was to gauge the demographics (their age, gender etc) and their psychographics (thoughts and opinions). We learn from the feedback that our target audience that our target audience preferred the 'rock genre' and the majority of the participants preferred an animation based music video  would appeal to them


Results from question 4 http://media-bell-h540.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/results-from-first-questionnaire.html
What style of music video do you prefer?

The results show that 4/10, the majority 40% of respondents prefer and animated based music video. From the results of this question and our initial ideas we have decided to go with an animation for our music video.


Question 4-b
why?

• I love anime

• Its clever and gives a good effect 

• Bored of usual videos

• I like different ideas

• Probably live action as i personally find it more interesting

• i would find it more interesting  

• I like bands

• Because i like seeing the band play 

• It gives a personal face to the band, you get a view of the artist and feel for their personality through the way they perform

• From the following- band logo, Amp, Instruments, Band performing, Audience Low key lighting

• 
  

• 

• that's cool. XD

• "
You did a great job! I liked the video in youtube and gave it a thumbs up! 

• + : You did an awesome job with the crowd sequences and with Dave G's toon. My favorite part is starting from 3:07 into the vid up until the end. I liked that sequence, and you could tell you and your team had fun putting it together!                                                                                                           
- : Color is probably the only issue I found to stick out. Seemed a bit rushed in some spots, where you can see the white background showing through. BUT...I suffer from that in almost everything I color, everytime! lol so I say GREAT JOB in both your pro's and your con's                                            -IK"

• "
Love it! I really like all the switching of angles. I think it really made the video interesting. How did you create it? I would really like to try one some time."

• cool your video, the only thing I noticed is that the singer's b
eard is above the microphone, but is very well edited! and if I walk too XDDD youtube.

• Average
 score of 7.2 

• The range was of 2

• The medium was 7.5

• The mode was 8

• ‘Hand drawn animation’

• ‘The music. Setting suits it’

• ‘Abstract Audience – in time J’

• ‘The art styles good’

• ‘Song choice’

• ‘Art style’

• ‘Quality of Animation’

• ‘The characters are static’

• ‘Lack of movement – drummer especially’

• ‘Art seems unclean’

• Quality of Animation’

• ‘lip sync to music’

Participant	What they feel necessary to improve the piece
1	‘The Characters are a little too slow for the music’
2	‘More fluidity
3	‘mouth movement’ and ‘Wider range of shots’
4	‘Animation – seemed still, could do with more movement ‘
5	‘The lip sync technology could be a bit more accurate’

Participant	1	2	3	4	5
score	4	8	6	7	7

1. from the feedback that our target audience that our target audience preferred the 'rock genre' and the majority of the participants preferred an animation based music video  would appeal to them

1. our target audience preferred the 'rock genre' and the majority of the participants preferred an animation based 
music video  would appeal to them

1. respondents prefer and animated based music video as 

• I love anime

• Its clever and gives a good effect 

• Bored of usual videos

• I like different ideas

1. Our target audience preferred a music video based on both a narrative and performance.

1. The audience felt that following conventions were associated with rock and they would prefer a music video that meets these conventions rather then challenge them 

1. the focus should be shared between the singer, guitarist and drummer and other band members that are not of these roles should be given less focus. 

1. When showing our early work to peers they felt the editing was slow in places and that there needed to be more motion

1. When showing the music video on Deviant art and youtube there were overall positive responses

1. the music video was appealing to the audience

1. the audience overall felt that the use of animation suited the song 

1. Our target audience felt it was necessarily to change some aspects to improve the piece overall

1. The audience overall felt that the art style suited the alternative rock genre

1.  the pace of the editing and whether it matched the pace of the song

• "... You did an awesome job with the crowd sequences and with Dave G's toon. My favorite part is starting from 3:07 into the vid up until the end. I liked that sequence... "
 .

• " ...very well edited! ...

• ‘Hand drawn animation’

• ‘The music. Setting suits it’

• ‘Abstract Audience – in time J’

• ‘The art styles good’

• ‘Song choice’

• ‘Art style’

• ‘Quality of Animation’

• ‘The characters are static’

• ‘Lack of movement – drummer especially’

• 'Art seems unclean’

• Quality of Animation’

• ‘lip sync to music'

1. ‘The Characters are a little too slow for the music’

1. ‘More fluidity

1. ‘mouth movement’ and ‘Wider range of shots’

1. 'Animation – seemed still, could do with more movement ‘

1. ‘The lip sync technology could be a bit more accurate’

Question 6

What type of video to do prefer?

Our target audience preferred a music video based on both a narrative and performance.

Second Questionnaire http://media-bell-h540.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/results-from-second-questionnaire.html 

From our target audiences feedback we learnt that our audience preferred the rock genre and an animated music video as it was different and because some liked other animation styles such as anime. We also learnt that an audience preferred both performance and a narrative when it came to composition of a music video. 

We next asked our target audience in a second questionnaire what conventions they would expect from the rock genre, the importance of different band members and what they would expect to see in a rock genre music video.

Our target audience expects in a rock music video

• The band
• referencing specific instruments used by band - drums and guitar
• The band members usually have long hair
• The band often destroys instruments such as guitars near the end of the music video
• A lot of focus is on the singer
• That the band members should be performing actions such as head banging
• There have been general refferences to the instruments so this would suggest they expect instruments in the music video
• The use of special effects such as smoke have been suggested
• Close up's and quick editing have been suggested  i belive that we will take this into consideration during the production and editing process
• The suggestion of loads of speakers i believe has already been incorperated into out music video as i have designed a background that if filled with speakers but will still take this under consideration
  
  
  
  
  And from the feedback we learnt that the audience preferred it when a music video met these conventions. 
  
  
  
  
  
  They felt that the focus of the music video should be equal when it comes to the vocalist, drummer, guitarist and bass guitarist.
  
  
  
  We also asked about What icons/signs would you most expect to see in a 'rock' video?

The results show the band performing, instruments and amp's are the  most popular signs/icons the audience expect to see in a 'rock' music video. So with regards to the results we till try to incorporate Band performing, Instruments and Amp's within our music video


From this we learnt that our target audience associates generic conventions with the rock genre music videos such as hair length and special effects and preferred it if the music video met these conventions. They felt the focus should be shared between the singer, guitarist and drummer and other band members that are not of these roles should be given less focus. 


During the early an later stages of production of our animated music video we showed our music video to our peers (other media students) and asked for formative feedback. As they shared the similar demographics as our target audience it would be reasonable to assume that they would be able to give representative responses. During the process of peer assessment there were comments that the music video seemed slow at some points and to improve we needed to increase the amount of cuts and shots so that the music video would reflect the pace of the song. There was also mention that the characters seemed static at later stages we did try to add more motion by the use of zooms to give the illusion of motion. From this our peers were able to give constructive criticism and we learnt that some aspects of the music video needed to be changed in order better appeal to our target audience.


After we completed the post production stage and finished our music video and uploaded it onto YouTube so that the public could see. We didn't get any feedback when i posted the music video onto my Facebook account unfortunate as this was i was able to get feedback by posting a blog entry on my Deviantart account this was a good way of sharing my music video with a wide range of people that match the demo and psychographics of our target auidence.   


http://spectral-shadow.deviantart.com/journal/Hay-people-i-need-you-help-289969169


I asked my peers to watch the music video and give feedback and got the following comments

There was also a comment on the music video on Youtube:

From these results i have learnt that overall our target audience do like our music video from the positive responses however we did get some some negative criticism which links to the colour and backgrounds. We also showed our work to members of our target audience at and gave out a questionnaire to gauge there response to our completed music video.

Questionnaire

http://media-bell-h540.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/questionnaire-for-premier-of-finished.html

Results

http://media-bell-h540.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/results-from-premier-questionnaire.html

We learnt from question 1 that -

From the results it can be seen that overall the participants liked the music video with an 




As the score suggests that it was acceptable to the audience this also suggests that there was aspects that the audience felt needed to be changed or some aspects

We learnt that from question 2 that -

Our target audience liked the following aspects of the music video

And that they disliked some aspects of the music video

These results show that there are aspects of the music video with the participants both liked and 
disliked and to improve the overall appeal of the music video such as make the characters less “static” or improving the “lip sync”.

From question 3 we learnt that -

the audience overall felt that the use of animation suited the song 

Overall participants felt that the use of animation suited the song choice. With overall positive responses however 60% of the responses felt that only the use of animation somewhat suited the song. This suggests that animation may not be a strong choice for suiting the song we chose.


We learnt from question 4 that - 


Our target audience felt it was necessarily to change some aspects to improve the piece overall








We learnt from question 5 that-


The audience overall felt that the art style suited the alternative rock genre






With an overall positive response i am pleased that the art style reasonable suits the genre however perhaps a different art style would be more suitable.


From question 6 we learnt that-


The audience felt that the music video worked well without a narrative with 40% no's, 40% unsure's  and 20% somewhat. This would suggest that an audience might prefer a narrative or story to a music video however the overall majority no not feel so or are unsure.

We learnt from question 7 that- 

From the responses there were 100% positive or strongly positive views with regards to the pace of the editing and whether it matched the pace of the song. This suggests that we have successfully managed to match the pace and rhythm of the song.

                                         

From our peer assessment there was reference to the pace of the editing being slow i feel that during the editing process that followed we were able to match the editing the the pace of the song better. 

Overall i feel that we have learnt that our target audience - 

1. • The band
   • referencing specific instruments used by band - drums and guitar
   • The band members usually have long hair
   • The band often destroys instruments such as guitars near the end of the music video
   • A lot of focus is on the singer
   • That the band members should be performing actions such as head banging
   • There have been general refferences to the instruments so this would suggest they expect instruments in the music video
   • The use of special effects such as smoke have been suggested
   • Close up's and quick editing have been suggested  i belive that we will take this into consideration during the production and editing process
   • The suggestion of loads of speakers i believe has already been incorperated into out music video as i have designed a background that if filled with speakers but will still take this under consideration

Overall our target audience liked the following aspects of our video - 

Overall our target audience did not like the following aspects

And if we were able to go back and change some aspects of the music video to overall improve its quality. We asked our target audience what they would change to improve the music video.

In response to this we would change the following

Increase the speed or actions performed by the band members to better suit the pace of the song

Add fluidity between shots perhaps by using more transitions

Use a wider range of shots and use different angles

And take more time when it comes to lip syncing the singers mouth to the words of the song

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

My Digipak/CD cover

My Magazine advert

Do they look like there supposed to?

Music Video -   As I have not produced/create an animated music video previously I did not have an idea of how it was supposed to look. However, it has differed from our initial idea yet it looks like a music video and so far it looks like I expect it to look. 

Digipak/CD cover - The CD cover, does look like CD cover found and used by real media products and has come out how I expected it to. The CD cover does resemble the initial plan I made. However it does differ in some aspects such as the layout of text. But I do believe these changes do make it look more like a real media product that could be brought in shops. 

 Magazine advert – For my Magazine advert I did not start of with an initial plan of it but an idea of using my Digipak front cover on it; I played around with different ideas but eventually settled on having the image stretched to A4 size with a smaller pattern that isn't that noticeable made from much smaller sized cover images underneath this image. I feel that it does look like a real media product. 

I feel that my finished ancillary tasks did look how I intended and expected them to look and both the Magazine advert and the digipak from my perspective when finished were of high quality.

   

Does your work resemble real media products?

 Music video- As very few music videos, especially in the rock genre, are animated it is difficult to generalise the resemblance of our music video to others and say it defiantly does or does not look like a real rock music video. However there it does resemble some of the aspects such as using different shot types e.g. close up, mid shot etc. to give variety to the shots yet only sing few animations.

CD cover/digipak – My CD cover, I believe does resemble other real media products, It has all of the basic conventions of a real CD cover, an outside an inside cover, spine, bar code etc. Other cd covers use images of the lead singer and other artists and some do have close ups of the face focusing on the eyes. I researched other digipaks that have the same theme of the eyes and I can conclude other digipaks to look similar and does resemble my own work however the close up is of the whole face and doesn't just focus on one section of the face. 

 Magazine advert – The magazine advert I have created does resemble real media, I feel that its high quality and does meet conventions of magazine adverts such as it has an image and logo’s of music producers and label.

Do they look like they’re all part of the same product?

My music video and ancillary tasks do not all share the same brand identity.

 Music video- Our music video has different colours scheme and use a wide range of colours where as the images on the ancillary tasks use a monotone colour scheme consisting of blacks, white, grey, yellow and orange. Even though they do not share the same colour scheme I believe this is still effective and allows my CD cover and Magazine advert to make a bold statement and attract audience with its unique and different look.

CD Cover/Digipaks and Magazine Advert - The font throughout the ancillary tasks have graphic match being the same font and colour, and the size varying depending on its use, for example the track list on the CD cover is much larger than the smaller text of the disclaimer underneath.

The music video has 4 different band members, but in the ancillary tasks there is only the lead singer. This is not uncommon of cd covers to only have the lead singer, but usually it does have some group image of the band somewhere but would depend on the band. For example the Foo Fighters vary in there use of members with sometimes using 1 or more members to not using any.

An example of a cd cover with the
whole band

An example of  band using different
types of cd cover that doesn't
use any band members

Brand identity is important in promoting an artist/song as it allows the target audience to link promotive material such as magazine adverts to a music video and band. So the audience can look into/research the new album and

spread awareness about it to other groups socially and increase fan base and sales. 

Do the colours/images/text/locations/actors/props effectively represent your genre?

 Music video

-colours, The use of greys, reds and blacks within the music video especially in the backgrounds meet a convention of rock. Rock as a genre, has connotations of darkness and bands tend to use these colours in there outfits and settings during music videos.

-images - the use of animated images to create our music video is not typical of the rock genre so isn't representative of the rock genre. 

-locations, as our video is animated we had to draw in backgrounds and settings and chose to do an stage seen in some rock videos e.g. Escape the Fate - This war is ours music video. The use of speakers and dark colours and reds is representative of

-actors – We didn’t use any actors however our characters we drew wear casual styled cloths this may not be representative as rock however some alternative rock genre bands do wear casual style cloths

-props – the use of instruments may be considered props, the instruments are representative of the rock genre e.g. guitar. The use of reds of greys are also representative of the rock genre as they tend to use colours schemes which include reds, grey and blacks.

 CD cover/digipak

-colours – the colours used in the digipak are different to the music video however its colours are representative of the alternative rock genre. The use of yellow and oranges seem not to be part of the colour scheme of generic rock CD covers.

-images – The images of a face and a mask could be seen as symbolic and has a deeper meaning. This is also a part of rock genre CD covers where the CD covers present an often seemingly odd image yet connects to the song lyrics or artist.

-locations – There is no location used in my CD cover, this does not meet conventions of rock as it has no location or background. In rock CD covers do not always have a location the background could be white or not have a background. However usually there is a background so I could say that since there isn’t a background or location my CD cover challenges the conventions of rock genre.

Examples of cd covers that aren't in set in a location

-actors – The use of the lead singer image within the CD cover is representative of rock genre as generally the lead singer is used in the cd cover. This is represents the rock genre, however the use of actors/people used within cd covers does often include more then one band members.

examples of CD covers with only lead singer 

examples of CD covers with band

Props- I haven’t used any props within my cd cover this is not typical of a cd cover therefore can be seen as non representative of the rock genre.

Magazine advert

For the magazine advert I used the same image from the front cover of my CD cover/Digipak. This is helpful is created brand identity, therefore the colours, images; location, actors and props are similar.

Colours– the colours used in the digipak are also different to the music video however its colours are representative of the alternative rock genre. The use of reds and blacks are representive as they convey an idea of danger and catch the eye.

an example of a cd cover that is eye catching 

Images- The images of a face could be seen as symbolic and has a deeper meaning. This is also a part of rock genre Magazine covers where the advert present an often seemingly odd image yet connects to the song lyrics or artist.

Locations- There is no location this is not typical of rock genre as they have an image and a background even if its basic. My advert however does not meet this convention therefore isn’t fully representative of the rock genre.


Actors- If actors are used such as use of a lead singer image within the magazine advert is representative of rock genre as generally the at least the lead singer and possibly other band members are used in the magazine As my Magazine advert uses a close up of the lead singer I believe that my advert is represents of the rock genre.

Props- I haven’t used any props within my advert this is not typical of a magazine advert therefore can be seen as non representative of the rock genre.