Evaluation Question 1

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

In addition to the video, looking at Goodwin's theory, I noticed that our video challenges the common convention of electronic music of having disjuncture. We challenged that convention by having Dan Davids performing to the character, breaking the 4th wall, whilst maintaining a light narrative to be consistent all throughout it. Our video resulted to be a 70-30 ratio of performance to narrative, which I feel conforms to the convention of a regular pop music video, but intentionally matches the ratio of the original music video.

Link: http://dollasign7.wix.com/arcanedandavids

Evaluation question 4

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I believe that over the course of the project we have greatly improved on our piece. We have done our best to act on both student and teacher feedback which is part of the reason why we are satisfied with the final piece. As seen below, we were advised to film in more locations which we did and by the end we had more locations then we could include which I think was great. It was also pointed out that we didn't have enough close-ups which we also improved on which gave us a balance and a wider shot variety in the final piece. By our second rough cut we still did not have all the shots we needed so our pace of editing and variety of shots suffered. After showing this rough cut to our teacher we have noticed that our change of costume was too frequent and sudden between the denim jacket and the black shirt. We have decided to film later that day with a more suitable costume which was the bomber jacket and the shirt. 

As seen below, we mostly received praise for the editing and use of location. We managed to maintain great continuity and flow throughout the piece that was clearly noticeable to the audience. Also, due to the frequent re-shooting, we managed to gather a wide range of locations which then gave us the comfort of always picking the best shot in the best possible location to our disposal.

When it comes to the cinema screening we have received very positive feedback both verbal and in the form of an impressive applause as can be seen below. We believe this is due to the fact that our final piece appeared to be up to industry quality thanks to its effective editing style and use of location.

As to to my digipak, I have tried to receive feedback from as many students including teachers. Students that have looked at my work liked the use of colours and implementing the use of the grey background from the album photoshoot.  The thing that worried me however is that not everyone noticed the use of the Arcane eye on the front panel. This was a problem as it is our main aspect of synergy between all platforms. In order to tackle this I have decided to add a large image of the eye on the left inside panel. Due to the inside's simplicity, the eye is almost the first thing you see and I believe it works very well with the image. I have also received feedback from a teacher regarding the use of font and colour. At first I went with a font that didn't really suit the electronic music genre I tried to represent as it was too swirly and unprofessional. I was the told the colour also did not work as I used a dark red which did not match with the overall colour scheme of the album cover. In response to this, I decided to implement a light/neon blue colour which I think is very effective on the song list against its black background. The lighter blue on the Album name "Voltage' also works as it also links to the definition of the word and the idea of electricity. Everyone that I have asked really liked the inside due to its simplicity and a powerful image that works really well.   

The feedback towards my website I believe was much more positive. People didn't fail to see the link in colour scheme between the website and the digipak. Due to being complemented on simplicity on the inside of the album, I decided to carry this over to the website by using only one large image with the music video over it. I decided to slightly change the font of the artist names in order for them to stand out more against their background whilst at the same time maintaining the black and white colour scheme. I also received positive feedback regarding the social media links as I made the stand out as much as possible which is an effective strategy for an upcoming artist to build a social media following. Also, I carried over the same font for the album name in order to create another synergy link so that the album name can be recognisable and have a name to it amongst audieneces. 

Finished Website

This is my finished website. 

evaluation question 2

Created with Padlet

Evaluation Question 1

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

3. Seun, Daniel, Beau, Chyna from 283goswell on Vimeo.

Some screenshots of websites that have influenced mine

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak/website)?

I feel the combination of our video and digipak/website are very strong, comparatively. The video, itself, was created to show a type of imbalance in attention, as Dan Davids was  given more screen time and focus compared to Arcane. With the video alone, a new viewer would assume that Dan Davids was the main artist as he is the one consistently seen from beginning to end.

Having said that, to the fans that recognise both Arcane and Dan Davids, they'd realise as he's the producer, he's shown in order to make him seem like he's any other person in the video. In response, however, for the album cover, I intentionally put the both of them on there in a sense of irony. To the newer viewers that would've thought "what's the significance of this person?", they're now seeing that same person on the front of the album cover. I feel this is very effective, as stated in question 1, it's not 100% common in electronic music to have images of the artists on the album cover. Therefore, it would theoretically be Dan Davids on the album covers, but I decided to go against that convention, commonly found in pop music.

Factors of synergy that were used, were the Arcane eye and both artists making appearances on the covers and in the music video. In order to maintain the continuity with all of the products, we realised it would've been best to keep both artists making an appearance in one way or another. On the other hand, for the website, I specifically intended to have only the Arcane eye on the website as it was my best way to remain minimal and focused on the content, similar to Calvin Harris' website.

The combination of the website, the digipak and the video, in my opinion, turned out to be very strong. The video matched the standards of industry music videos, the digipak kept that level of quality up, and I feel the overall package from all of the products turned out to be very strong, high-quality and effective in cohesion.

Evaluation question 3

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Question 3

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We used media technologies in various different methods, provided by different forms. For research and planning, we created a production schedule on TimeToast, in order to help us maintain a plan all throughout the time given to shoot, edit & have everything made prior the deadline. Regarding the storyboard, I used StoryboardThat to create a draft storyboard, in order to illustrate the vision given for the final video.

For the actual equipment used, we used a Canon 550D in order to shoot the video, along with an iMac as our system to edit it with. Using a computer like an iMac allowed us to work efficiently, and was easy to work with. 

When it came down to the edit, we used Premiere Pro. Two effects that we created when using Premiere Pro, would be the use of keyframes, automating the opacity of a clip, and layering side clip over another. In addition, using a Gaussian blur filter over a clip. That, in itself, is how the clip below was created. We made sure not to make the performance clip secondary to the effects happening over it, but due to keyframes in Premiere Pro, it worked out very well.

I used Photoshop in order to create the album cover, front, back and inside. I used a lot of layering in creating it, in order to prevent the cover from being 'flat', so to speak. I used a wide range of tools, also. From the magic wand tool to remove parts I did not want, duplicating the layers, then adding a filter onto the secondary layer, move tool, polygonal lasso tool, etc. Below is a small example on how exactly I made the cover:

I used Wix in order to create my website, and found it was rather easy to work with. I embedded our music video to be the first set of content shown on the screen, as I intended it to be seen first. I also added the links above the front text, along with the social media link (as shown below).


Canon 550D to record, blogger used to research and show progress between different stages (to help each other know what's going on), Twitter used to show when the filming process took place, YouTube to develop research on existing songs/music videos to help.

I also used websites such as YouTube for research, allowing us to watch real media products in order to see what the conventions were for the genre and what effects we may add in ours. We also used Twitter in order to post when we were filming, that way it was easy for our group to be monitored under health and safety. Below are examples of how both Twitter & YouTube were used, along with examples of us filming.

Evaluation Question 4

This is the original feedback that we had on our rough cut of our music video. At this point we had a strong start, with people really liking our silhouette shots of Dan. The main focus from this point was to ensure that we actually completed the editing on the full video and also to add some more shots of Beau to add some of the focus to her.

Screen On the Green visit - Kizoa Online Movie Maker

Evaluation Question 3

These are screenshots of the storyboard I created using the website storyboardit

finsihed digipak

This is the outside of my Digpak.


This is the inside of my Digpak.

Evaluation Question 2

Created with Padlet

Links I've made are the shadow effect that I've used on the digipak which I darkened to create a more effective look, which links to the shadow shots that we used in our music video which was a really effective look and the shots looked really amazing. The photo I used on my digipak had a shadow in it and so I thought I would use it to my advantage and make a link between my main product and my ancillary texts.
Another link I made was the synergy that we used in the music video which was of the 'Arcane' eye. We used that in our video to establish the artist and so I also used that on my digipak, on both of my artists eyes which I think works well.

Evaluation question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak/website)?

I think the combination between our main product and my ancillary texts is very effective. In contrast to the main product, I decided to focus more on Arcane and not as much Dan Davids. I have done this by making the Arcane name more visible through a bolder and bigger font and also making sure to point out that Dan Davids is just a feature. I thought this way the audience will be able to recognise Arcane as a producer and not a performer. This also links to his name as Arcane means "understood by few; mysterious or secret." His low presence in the music video allows him to live up to his name and create a sense of mystery among the demographic audience, enticing them and creating a brand image for the artist.

The main aspect of synergy I focused on is the Arcane face art which features across all my media platforms (website, album cover and music video.) My doing this, it creates a brand image for Arcane and something he can be recognised by. In the music video we tried to make it clear that the face art belongs to Arcane as it only features once when it appears behind Arcane's back as he puts down the newspaper. The artists I decided to get inspiration from are Disclosure as seen below. The two brothers appear side by side with the use of the their face art across their faces. I have applied this to both my album cover and website and I believe it is effective.  

Even though our face art does not cover much of the faces, the inside of the digipak is the first time the two artists are without it over their face. This gives the product a premium feel as the audience would have to purchase the CD in order to see this. The eye is still featured but this time it is an enlarged version in the top left, maintaining the synergy but not covering their face at all. 

I have also decided to change the colour scheme I use in comparison to the music video as it features no black and white. I decided to change this as I believe it looks better and it gives it a mysterious look which a debut album needs in order to grab the attention of a potential audience. I think as a whole our main piece and my ancillary products are very successful and I believe they work together well.

Evaluation Question 4

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From the audience feedback over the course of the project, I definitely feel our group made a huge improvement between the start and end. At the beginning, we were given good signs from our feedback, being told our piece had potential but the actual idea was not concrete. I, at the time, was confident of the end result, but didn't have proof or full evidence to show why exactly I was confident. We had started shooting, made a rough cut and allowed others to give us feedback on said rough cut. From that feedback, everyone else had a stronger sense as to what the end result may look like, considering the rate we were working at.

From the rough cut feedback, we noticed that during our editing stage, people that wandered past us noticed the silhouette shot in our video. We were constantly & randomly told the shot came out great, it really works in the video and completely took that on board for the rest of the edits. This taught me that, if people are to gravitate towards this shot, even when they're not intended to look at it as of yet, then more people will gravitate towards it when the final product has been edited. Therefore, indirectly telling me to include the silhouette shot even more, as it is a very nice shot.

I also learned that from my ancillary products in comparison to real media products, the responses were that I had used conventions to its potential, making my ancillary come off as a strong example against real media products. The album cover and website show indications that I carefully looked at the different conventions, saw how they could be used and manipulated them by using them, conforming against them, and/or developing them.

From the silhouette shot (directly in the middle of editing), to the last day of editing, we were confident that our piece was very strong. It was well edited, well shot & the performance levels remained consistent. At least, that's how we felt.

But, that's also everything that we were told at the premiere to the audience.

After it showed, they commented on how well done our piece was, and the fact that it had a high quality from beginning to end. From that point, I had learned that my gut instinct of believing in the project, thinking of new ideas, what can we do, what can't we do, ended up getting our project to where it needed to be. I learned that the video came out strong, and everything that we set out to do from the beginning, we did.

Regarding the ancillary work, I learned that others understood why I had made certain things how they are. For example, the use of colour and the effect it has on the album covers, matching the quality of professional, industry standard covers. I learned that the covers also matched the 'vibe' of the video, too, and remained consistent with the website, having factors of synergy be included in each product. The feedback from both the album cover and website tell me that, considering the budget given and the space of time, they both came out very strong and maintained the consistency at a high level.

Evaluation question 1

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

Finished Digipak

FINISHED DIGIPAK

I have finished my digipak and I am happy with how it looks. I kept the inside simple with a large picture of Dan Davids and Arcane across the inside. The colour scheme (grey) from the front panel carries on inside which I think is effective, leaving only the back panel different as it has a different colour scheme of black and a neon green. I have decided to to put Arcane (Seun) on the CD as it is his album and Dan Davids is the feature. I also use the Arcane eye art which is the synergy link as well as carrying it on from the front panel when the Arcane eye is over theirs.   

Final Video

3. Seun, Daniel, Beau, Chyna from 283goswellg on Vimeo.

evaluation question 3

This is a camtasia of how I have used photoshop when making my ancillary product. I have used quick selection tool and changed colour.

This is how I added a link and videos to my website on wix. 

 Screen shots of when I was making a animated story board , with storyboardthat website. One for for my summer homework and the other was for my music video , my music video one is much more detailed as over the period of time I learnt more ways to use it so it was much more better, amd the reason I used this was for the planning on my product.

This is evidence when I used the green screen which I then edited in premiere pro. 

This was our instagram site , where we kept our teachers updated on the locations where we was and we just added extra pictures.

Overall this is all the media technologies that I used to help me with my planning , research and evaluation stages.

Finished Website

Finished Website

http://daniu1599.wix.com/arcane

I have decided to carry on the black and white colour scheme that I used on the album cover and I think it is effective. I made sure to include a lot of social media links as well as an iTunes link, keeping the website simple but sufficient regarding audience needs. I also included the Omen music video to entice a first time visitor to the website.