1. A2 Media Evaluation
Catherine Dunning

2. Q1:In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Shot 1:
We used dubbed sound effects of the introduction and cheering at the end of the song to create a live effect, as well as the sound being place into the video, which is also commonly used to give a better quality sound to the song.
Shot 2:Shows an establishing shot of the band, which is also the way a record company would portray the band, with the drummer in the far back and the main singer closer to the camera. This shot is seen in many other alternative music videos and therefore follows the conventions.
3. Shot 3:
This shot shows clearly the way in which our music video follows other music videos of the same genre, with the use of close up shots of instruments, including drums which we have also used throughout our video.
Shot 4:This shot illlustrates the use of camera work, showing close up shots of the main singer during the singing, and cutting back to him throughout the rest of the video, which is also common in other music videos of the same genre.
4. Shot 5: This shot shows key lighting techniques, with the coloured lights behind the band, which flashes to red during the bands chorus. This use of lighting also demonstrates my research before filming my video, as it shows a direct link to The vines video called hes a rocker. The band also use a lot of bright lights in their video get out, which we tried to use in our video as well.
Shot 6:
This shot shows the use of camera and editing. This shot shows the movement with a hand held camera from the drummer to the main singer. The use of editing shows fast cuts to match the fast pace of the song to match the video to the music, which is seen in a lot of videos.
5. Shot 7:
This shot shows the use of mise en scene, mainly with their outfits, which we researched before filming. We have also used real instruments and lighting to make the set look authentic and real for a music video/show.
Shot 8:For the setting, we used a drama studio, with black curtains and stage lighting, in order to create what a real show would have looked like.
Shot 9:We also used a mix of black and white and colour that is common in a lot of rock/alternative videos e.g. The strokes.We also used slow motion effects toshow the song coming to an end which is sometimes used as a fade instead, but is quite a common editing technique.
6. To show how my CD and website digipack develops or challenges forms and conventions of real media products, please use the link below:
http://prezi.com/c3e9piasnoa0/qs-1/
7. Q2:How effective is the combination of your main product (music video) and ancillary texts (the website & digipak)?
Below is a link to sound cloud, which contains a recording for question two:
http://soundcloud.com/cmdunning/question-2
8. Q3:What have you learned from your audience feedback?
To view this question please use the link below:
http://prezi.com/t37azzyjz3nm/q3-what-have-you-learned-from-your-audience-feedback/
9. Q4:How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
The technologies and equipment we used have influenced our project, because if they had not been as advanced , we would not been able to create such an effective music video or digipack.I have split this question into four sections:Research,planning,construction and evaluation.
10. Research
During the research stage media technologies such as wordpress which enabled us to create our own blogs, where all our coursework elements would be placed. For researching our demographic and the conventions of our genre, we used websites such as slideshare. Using the information we gathered from slideshare and other websites such as the vines official website, we created a small presentation on prezi, a more creative form of powerpoint. Youtube was another website we used a lot throughout the research stage. We used this website to look at existing music videos by The Vines as well as other music videos of the alternative rock genre, which helped us to find out the conventions and codes of the genre, and ways we could use these in our own video. We also used video recording as part of our research, and final cut pro, to film and edit our vox pop, which enabled us to extend our research and produce clear evidence.
11. Planning
Although for the planning stage, we did not use as much technology, it still played an important role. We used websites such as facebook and other social media to communicate, which helped us organize and keep a time frame . For our storyboarding, which shows us the different shots we will need to use in our music video, we used adobe flash, which enabled us to create a storyboard that looked more like our music video, rather than still images, which would not have looked as effective.
12. Construction
For the construction of my products, the most amount of technologies were used. For the music video we used HD cameras to produce a high quality image, editing software(final cut pro), and sound editing software. The sound editing software helped for adding the sound at the beginning and ending of our track, in order to produce a live atmosphere to our video. The editing software was vital for the construction of our music video, in making the product look professional and effective to the audience.For our digipack, we went on to using photography and image editing software such as photoshop and adobe dreamweaver. Photoshop allowed me to edit my images, and construct together different things to produce my CD cover and Website home page in a professional way. Adobe dreamweaver was then used for my website, in order to link up the different pages on my website e.g. news, images, band information etc. to the home page, and to transform the images/pages into a real website. Without this programme, the website would not have looked professional, or worked correctly.
13. Evaluation
During the evaluation stage, I used many of the same technologies I was already familiar with. I made use of my blog (wordpress) to upload the evaluation and prezi to create more interesting presentations for two of the four questions. I then went on to using sound cloud which is a website for uploading sound files to the internet, which I then used to embed the link onto my evaluation for question 2. However, I experienced some difficulty with sound cloud as the recording I had made could not be uploaded onto sound cloud, I had to use other programmes to convert the file into a sound wave file, which then allowed me to upload the recording to sound cloud. This was one of the disadvantages of using this type of technology during my evaluation.