In what ways your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product challenges real conventions because it has elements that real life products would have. For example the calendar i created has editorial credits and a bar code. The main product challenges forms of existing products because it has features that have been already been used in music videos for example a point in the video that is sped up which represents loneliness has been previously used in music videos like "Numb" By Linkin Park and "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve so we decided to include these aspects to ensure it meets the requirements of the target audience

For my ancillary products I looked closely at the conventions of existing calendars on the Internet. I looked at some existing calendars on websites such as hmv to see what layout was most appropriate for the genre of the calendar I was going to create and I found that a lot of them used thick block text which I Incorporated into my product as well as dark colours which I already used due to the colour scheme. The tour date poster I created also challenges codes and conventions of existing products as it has a simple presentation which, during the research stage I found most tour date posers have yet the key information is in a bright colour meaning it stands out, it to be simple yet effective and that the way it challenged media texts and I feel the creation of it was successful.

Evaluation: Using new media technology in construction research planning and evaluation stages

In order to create the successful video we used a lot of new media technology from cameras to using blogger to keep track on everything I've done. To create the music video we used Adobe Premiere Pro which I mentioned in blog "sorting through footage..." Before the production process at the beginning of the school term we created a school open day video helped us gain an insight on Adobe Premiere Pro which at times can be difficult to use by doing this we learnt simple techniques like speeding up footage, and slowing it down. using the razor tool to cut footage etc. The more time spent using Adobe Premier Pro meant that the editing stages were becoming simple as it was easy to forget which tools do what so it was important to use the software for hours at a time. Using Adobe Premiere Pro was a new skill I learnt, I didn't know much about the software before creating the main product as I've used software like Photoshop and Illustrator before learning to add things such as motions took concentration and practice as certain shots needed to be more focused than others and we added jump cuts so getting it right was vitally important to ensure that the video looked conventional and professional.

Even the use of the blog was a good way to documentate what work has been done and what is left to do. It is easily accessible creating things like a filming diary where you can look back on where you have gone is good also its a way of storing photos and its a god way of group communication.

To film we used video cameras along with all the things we needed to ensure we got the correct shots that we needed as some shots need to be close up, far away and focused. We used a dolly, tracks and a jib as well as the video cameras.  I primarily used the Internet to undergo research as the Internet is a much more quicker way of looking at existing products rather than going to shops or to locations to look at existing products.

New media technology helped out in all stages of the production process, from pitching the idea on a PowerPoint presentation to using photoshop to edit photos. I even found it more easier to make plans of what the ancillary tasks would look like on word documents on the computer after sketching them on paper because its easier to convey the ideas and the position of each of the elements when it is already on screen.

Evaluation: Effectiveness of Ancillary Tasks and Main Products

The effectiveness of the ancillary tasks and the main products was good, I feel they went together well and had shared the appropriate features. The narrative structure of the video is revolved around belonging, loneliness and love. This made the mood of the video quite sombre. After storyboarding and brainstorming our production group decided to focus our video around themes that would match the narrative. E.g. ensuring that the locations we were shooting at were all busy so that we could represent loneliness so nothing too bright that represents happiness quite dull and plain yet suitable for the genre and target audience. The tone of all the ancillary tasks match as we all used the same colours and fonts, Skin And Bones.

As this is the theme of the music video using dark colours such as shades of grey and dark blue matched the convention of the theme. The song "Use Somebody" isn't an upbeat cheery song, its average speed, the lyrics are solemn and meaningful therefore using bright colours would look out of place and inappropriate. We did not include any narrative devices such as flashbacks in the story as it wasn't suitble for the representation of the theme of the video. To keep everything consistent we shot the band shots in a dark and dim coloured studio making sure the members of the band were wearing clothing that looked like the indie style, e.g  checkered shirts, similar to what the real band wore.

The combination of my ancillary products and the main task were good. I looked at the principal photography from the studio studio photography which gave me ideas as to what images I could include in the calendar. I decided that the band shots were appropriate to use and some of the shots I used are in similar position to those used in the actual video which worked well. The photos from the digipak all use the photography from the studio which means that all of the products were consistent. The studio footage was used a lot in the main products so the images used for the ancillary products strongly relate to the video.

Completed Tour Date Poster

 This is the completed tour date poster which has the same grey used throughout the project on all of the other ancillary products which relates to the mood of the narrative structure of the video.

This is the front page of the calendar which again has the dark grey colour scheme as well as different shades of grey for the mast heads.

Completed Calendar Front Cover

Overall I feel that there is a good link between the ancillary tasks and the main tasks the house style and colours match the themes and I feel that it doesn't look random, it all matches and this means that it looks up to a professional standard and conforms to the codes and conventions of other products in the same catergory. Perhaps some more iconic London aspects or pictures could of been added to the ancillary tasks to show iconography as it would reflect the narrative idea of being alone in a big city. Although by incorporating this it could be slightly confusing but overall I feel the completed tasks and the main product are effective together. 

Evaluation: Audience Feedback

This is the completed version of the tour date poster. I finally incorporated the font our group decided on for the mast head of the poster and the sub titles which is good because it means that all of the ancillary tasks remain consistent as well as this I also used the colour scheme so the house style of the products was consistent.

This is the original version.

I decided to use one main image instead of two to keep the poster conventional as after the research I conducted I discovered that a lot of tour date adverts had one main image so in order to keep the product looking professional as possible I decided to work on a new illustrator file to incorporate these changes. Also I increased the sizes of the text as when I printed it out onto A3 the text was incredibly small. I requested some peer review and from this I also discovered that from afar the main text that said "Kings Of Leon" was hard to read as it was black text over the dark image.

During the course of creating the ancillary tasks and the music video I was constantly requesting feedback from my peers to see what I could improve. Minor elements like changing font sizes made vital differences as some on the tour date poster some of the significant fonts were in the incorrect size. For example the text that what was on the bottom of the page was in standard Arial font and after receiving peer feedback I was aware that it looked more professional by having the same text as the mast head. The font that is used for this was Skin And Bones so by applying this to the text at the bottom the poster looked much more conventional.  

I benefited a lot from peer feedback as small things that I wouldn't notice other people did, such as grammatical errors. Another example of something that I didn't originally notice was in the calendar I put the data into the month February incorrect and I was unaware of it until I asked for some peer feedback from another person in a different production group. This would of majorly affected my work if it was left unnoticed as all of the other data in the other months would have been wrong.

Receiving feedback from non-media pupils was helpful throughout the process particularly in receiving feedback from the main task. By receiving feedback from non-media pupils we got some positive criticisms back that not necessarily a media student would of picked up on. For example in the video there was a part of video that became blurred, slightly pixilated and cut off due to the original footage being cropped and zoomed in, this piece of footage was about 5 seconds to 10 seconds long so it wasn't a major part to be fixed straightaway. When some media students watched the part they didn't really focus on it because it may of been assumed that it was the camera but a non-media pupil pointed it out and it was easily rectified. 

Overall from audience feedback I have learned that it is important to stick to correct conventions to meet the requirements of the target audience. Audience feedback was a valuable part of the production process because when contstantly working on the same product it is hard to spot mistakes made. Things like consistency throughout all the products are important to ensure that it is up to a professional standard. Audience feedback taught me to check over work to ensure that everything is correct. E.g no spelling mistakes or grammatical errors as aspects like that make products not look up to correct standard or look professional. 

further development

After receiving some peer review from a member of my group a major mistake was noticed on my calender which in effect, has affected the whole entire calender

I have missed out a date in one of the boxes and this will affect the other months of the calendar that I have already created. To solve this problem I simply move the dates along one space. As there are guidelines hopefully the process will not take too long.

Last shots

Yesterday the last shots were filmed for the music video. This part of the video was the boy leaving his house and another Facebook shot showing how his is lonely. Once this is added to the timeline it will be more better because then we know of the boys position and there is no confusion of him being a stalker or following her.

More editing

After our review we have been adding wipe to white after every band shot. This shows us changing the settings on the wipe to ensure that it fits with the beat of the song because it looks much more effective.

We have been continuing the process of editing the video focusing mainly on inserting band shots as this is an important part of the video.

Once these shots have been added we then need to shift our focus to filling up the remaining gap which is situated right at the start of the video. This gap was purposely left out because we plan to add a shot of the boy getting ready as after receiving peer review and feedback the narrative is slightly unclear at the start of the video so when this last section of filming is done and these shots are added the rough cut will be compete!

Ancillary Task: Calendar

The final ancillary task that is near completion is a 2011 Kings Of Leon calendar. I created the calendar on illustrator. It took a lot of patience as the creation of it was quite tedious. The product is nearly finished, I am awaiting feedback so I can make improvements.

Rough cut almost finished

The rough cut of the music video is almost finished. We now need to focus on band shots and we need to ensure that they are long enough as at the moment the shots are rather shot and it is conventional that band shots are quite long. Also we have been focusing on transition between the narrative shots and the band shots. We were told to add white wipes for consistency as the wipes between the shots were all different, I originally thought it was to have different wipes because it would make it more interesting but it was not consistent or conventional. Once the rough cut is complete we will then focus on adding motions to the shots as some of the shots are quite boring. For example there is a shot where the boy and the girl are both looking at the bus schedule and it is very still but to make it more better we could add a motion where the shot will zoom in slightly making it a lot more better. A lot of the existing shots in the video have no motion and are boring so this is something that we will be focusing from as of Friday

Tour date poster research

I have started to do some research into indie rock tour posters to look at the conventions and elements that I could incoporate into the tour date poster that I am planning to improve.

 The posters are mainly plain. They all consist of one main image and text at the bottom. There is often small print of details at the bottom or near the top.

 On this Maccabees poster I like the way the size of of the venues text is bigger than the rest as it is important because when you see your favourite band is touring the first thing you look at on the poster is to see if they are playing at a venue close to home, this is a convention that I am going to add to my ancillary poster.

All of the posters have one main image of the band where as the poster I created had two so this is I may delete the second image and use one main one. All of the posters have the name of the band in block capitails at the top, this I already have but I am going to make the text more bolder by adding some effect or a stroke. When our group comes to an agreement on the font I will be using that specfic font and for the heading I may be using a font from "De Font" website but that is yet to be decided.

Feedback

Last Friday we received feedback from the teachers about the music video and the ancillary products. Our video needed some work because the narrative structure was unclear at times and was hard to follow so we experimented by incorporating some photo shop images of a phone which contained messages saying why nobody could come to London, but as a group we decided that we didn't want to add them and instead we may do some re-shooting or rearrange the footage we already have in a different way to make the narrative clearer. Plus we were taught how to add transitions and motions to slowly zoom into shots making the video more conventional and not as boring as shot was the same.

My ancillary products need slight adjustments. Some of the fonts are unclear and do not fit in with the rest of our groups fonts so that's something I am going to need to change. Also I am planning to add some effects to some of the photos on the tour date poster I created and on the calender because the photos are quite plain so I may use photo shop to give them a washed up rough edge look as that is a convention of indie rock. I also need to do further research to ensure my products meet the codes and conventions of this chosen genre.

Font Problems

Team Go For Gold have experienced some problems using font. We all have different fonts with a couple of exceptions. To fix this problem we are going to have a meeting to discuss what fonts we have used and the appropriate fonts we should use. This is a minor problem because the majority of my ancillary products are near completion so changing the font should not be a major problem for me. The font I have been using is Myriad Pro and the font that we all should be using in Arial.

Creation of a calender

This is first page of the calender demonstrating the design and how I am going to layout the calender.

As another part of the ancillary tasks I have decided to create a Kings Of Leon calender. I am going to make the 12 months of the year and create a front cover. I decided to create a calendar because after conducting research I've noticed that calendars are a common source of merchandise because it enables people to see important dates that bands may have well as having photos and posters also in sops such as HMV there are always calendars on sale so I thought it would be interesting to create.

http://hmv.com/hmvweb/simpleMultiSearch.dosearchUID=4508084054050384373&pGroupID=0&adultFlag=false&simpleSearchString=calenders+2011&primaryID=0&btnSubmitSearch.x=17&btnSubmitSearch.y=14
I was looking at the HMV website as part of my research to see how music calendars are laid out and what typical conventions they have

 As this was a recent decision to create the calendar I have only made a few months of the calendar to date and I am hoping to finish it soon so I can focus my attention on the rough cut of the music video

Editing Footage

Yesterday evening I continued the process of putting the music video together. I focused on the section along southbank pier and the section across the millennium bridge. For the southbank pier section I added the significant shot of the phone which had no text messages which relates to the narrative of the story. I included some of the area surrounding which was some of the skaters at Southbank which shows location. I included a shot of her sitting on the bench with people walking past her to emphasise loneliness. I also attempted to edit the millennium bridge I included different shots of the boy and girl bumping into each other.
:)

peer review

After some peer review on my ancillary products I am now making further development and I am now in the process of making a second version of the tour date poster so I can compare the two and see which one matches the codes and conventions of a tour date poster the most. After the research I have conducted and the peer review that I have received i'm confident that my prodcuts are heading the right direction.

tour date poster development

This is the development of a tour date poster as part of my ancillary products. This is the type of poster that is stuck up in areas that attract a lot of people for example stations, in shopping centres, on phoneboxes etc. There is some detail yet to be added mainly near the top

Filming...done!

These are some of the photos we took in London which consist of us filming on the train, on the train station and in London

Filming update: London done!!

On the 21st of January Team Go For Gold went to London to the main section of filming. We managed to find a boy to play the other main role which was great because finding a suitable boy was an issue for our team for quite a long time but once we sorted everything out filming went well apart from one problem. We encountered a problem at Bexleyheath train station. As we were filming the scene on the platform we were approached by station staff asking if we had permission to be filming. We resolved the problem by explaining that we were filming for educational purposes and that they should contact the school to clarify.

After that minor incident we went ahead to London and following the filming schedule we were able to go to all the locations and film varieties of different shots before sun down. Travelling around London was quite nerving as we had the camera out and was trying to get everything down before it got dark but we managed time well and was able to get to Trafalgar Square, the last location, and it was still day light.

London Calling

In two days Team Go For Gold are going to travel to London to do the main part of our filming. We have experienced some problems with the filming. The main issue was we have been able to find a suitable boy to be in the video. This was a big issue as the boy was supposed to be the the other main character but luckily we have found a reliable person to film and we are very grateful that he is giving up his time to help us. Another issue that is slightly worrying is that recently a school camera was broken in a accident and as we are going to London accidents may happen because it can be busy etc. But by using the risk assessment we are confident that everything and everyone will come back in one peace.

Band T-shirt research

Still unsure about the second ancillary task I have been conducting research into t-shirts. If I design a t-shirt it will be advertising the Only by the Night tour.These t-shirts are usually sold outside venues after the show of a band. As I attend gigs regularly i have a few band t-shirts of my own and the conventions of the t-shirts are very similar. The most common one being the dates of the tour on the back and perhaps an image of the band or an album cover on the front and I plan to

incorporate these conventions into the version I will create.

I looked at a range of different t-shirts on the web. Here are some examples

Following the research into band t-shirts I have decided to focus my poster on tour dates as this is an important conventional aspect of a band. I will incorporate a similar idea on the tour date poster as I will on the back of the band tour date t-shirt if I decide to create one :)