Lauren Nicola Brown - Advanced portfolio in Media

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

I chose to develop Take It Easy by That Blues Band. Even though this song was different type of music to what everyone else was doing i made my video reflect the blues music so it fit in with the mise-en-scene. I had to take into account other videos that where like my type of music so i could get it right. The main video i looked at was The Eagles - Busy Being Fabulous this helped me get an idea of what Blue's videos looked like. I really liked how it was a amplification video and decided to make mine one. I liked the idea of having a narrative and performance and since i knew the band i could film them any time. The costume in the video was really important so everyone got the narrative. There was two types of people a laid back person and a uptight person. The costumes would have to reflect their personalities so people would get the narrative. The bands costume was what they normally wear for shows so it reflects their genre and also fits in with the mise-en-scene.

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

To sell my product i had to make a digipack and a magazine promotion.Creating a magazine cover is really helpful to sell my product to its best ability. On the magazine cover i got other magazines feedback to try and sell my product. The album cover is on the front of the magazine to link the two together. This could help sell my product because it makes my product stronger.

I designed the digi-pack first and was quite pleased with the outcome. When creating my digi-pack i did quite a lot of research. I looked at other Blues bands covers to get ideas for my final idea for my cover. I liked how the band was on the front of most album covers and i decided to use the members of the band for the front of my album cover. To promote the album further i put 'Featuring Peter De Dee' on the inside as i think he would help sell the album because a lot of people know him. I also put the band members name on the magazine promotion as this also might make people buy it if they know the band members.

3.) What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Feedback has helped me a lot throughout the making of my music video because it has helped me improve a lot. Even the song was a different genre everyone liked it and managed to put their opinions forward to make my video the best it could be.

I first started by story-boarding my ideas on paper. When I created my storyboard Iet people have a look to see if people had any more ideas. It also helped point out the flaws in my ideas. My main problem was the time of each shot. They where either too long or to short. To overcome this problem I created an animatic to get the timings right for each shot. This helped me a lot with my planning because I knew exactly what to film. The only flaw in my planning was filming the band since I didn’t know what the space was like I was filming. It wasn’t that much of a big problem since I filmed them more than once in different angles.

Another big help with audience feedback was when I first started to get my footage together. One of my friends told me which was the best footage I had filmed of the band. This helped me a lot because it narrowed the amount of footage I had down so it was easier to edit it together.

My final draft of my video was shown to about 5 people including my teacher. From this I learned a lot because I knew that my video wasn’t the best it could be and the feedback gave me ideas on how to improve. One shot there was a problem with was one at the beginning with the band. When I was filming I moved from the singer to one of the band members doing nothing because it was just a rehearsal. I was advised to take this shot out and use another one with all the band doing something.

4.) How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
One of the new media technologies I used was Bluetooth. To get my photos from my phone to the eMac I used the Bluetooth technology to transfer them over. This was the easiest way to send photos.

Another form of media technology I used was Photoshop. Without this technology I wouldn’t be able to have created my digi-pack or my magazine promotion. Photoshop help make things look more professional too so this helped me make the product the best it could be.

At the beginning of my video I used final cut to start editing my sequence. I uploaded my footage onto i movie and then moved it onto final cut. I had footage of the laid back guy getting out of bed. I had a few problems with final cut. I managed to overcome them but with great difficulty. As I was cutting the footage it was converting back to the original. I could cut it then put it on the time line but when it was in clips it wouldn’t split up. I managed to overcome the problem eventually but then another problem arise. When I had different clips in the top left hand box I tried to re-name them but if I changed one they all changed. This was difficult for me because I had a lot of footage to work with so I would need names on shots to help me remember which ones they are. I edited the first bit of footage on Final Cut and then moved back onto iMovie.

Digipack - The Making

FRONT

I got photos of the band and cut them out and deleted the background e.g.

I decided on my final background which is the bands drum set.

I imported each member of the band onto the background.

I went through the effects I and found one i really liked, note paper.

I played around with the effects and colors till i got a color i liked. I then rearranged each member until they fit into a place i liked.

I then played around with the background.

These where the final three i liked and i chose the last one to be my final album cover as i thought this fit in most with the genre of my music video. It also reflects the personalities of the people in the band as well. The colors are vibrant to reflect the blues genre energy. I chose these specific photos because they look like they have attitude and they look a lot like the blues album covers i have analyzed. I worked out that album covers are 12x12 so i changed the size.

Front Cover

Inside

Peter sent me some photos of the band. Peter does a lot of work in the performing arts industry and i think he is a brilliant drummer and singer. To promote the video i think saying that it featured him would help sell the CD.

Inlay