Final product - music video

Completed website

The following link will direct you to a live version of my completed website - tyanaalex.wix.com/mausi 

Below is a power point presentation briefly explaining as to why I designed the website in the way I did.

Completed magazine advertisement

Below is my completed magazine advertisement and a slide share discussing the details of my second ancillary text. 

Evaluation question 1.

 In what way does your media project use, develop of challenge forms and conventions of real media productions?

I answered this question with a voice over and video response. 

Evaluation question 2.

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

In order to anserw this question I responded in the style of a vlog as I felt this would allow me to explain the ways in which the combination of my products were effective. 

Evaluation question 3.

Overall the audience feedback was able to inform me about the opinions of others and the various ways in which they perceived my products. I was able to learn that audience feedback is a significant element to consider once constructing a product as feedback is able to highlight strengths and weaknesses within products and this information can be used to improve the existing product or it can be considered when creating a new one.

Evaluation question 4

For this question I decided to respond through the use of a slideshow presnentaion as i felt this gave me the opportunity to respond in a comprehensive and detail way. 

Evaluation Questions

As my production draws to a close I am now entering the evaluation stages where I will have to answer four questions in relation to my product. 

Below are the four questions with a brief outline of my understanding and how I plan to respond to them.

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

This question also featured as a part of the evaluation for my AS production so I feel fairly conformable and what this question is asking me the appropriate ways as to how I could effectively respond. This question is asking me identify the ways in which my music video is similar/different to existing media products. I feel that one way in which I could respond to this question would be through the use of a directors commentary which would require me talk over my product as it plays through. This would enable me to identify the areas that wanted to analyse and discuss along with the image. 

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

I will answer this question in the style of a vlog as i feel this will give me a good opportunity to explain how i feel the combination of my three products is effective. 

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In order to carry out audience feedback I will create and survey as well as interview people for more detail. once i have gathered this information I will analyse it with a combination of a vlog and a slide show presentations.

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


This question is similar to the seventh question of my AS production so I am familiar with what it is asking me, alike last year I will answer this question within a slide show presentation as i feel this way of responding allows me to be specific and systematic about each technology that i used. 

Music video survey

I decided to create a short survey in order gain some audience feedback in relation to my final music video. Below is a link to my final music video and a link leading too the survey, I will use data gathered within my evaluation. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtwN7yz6HO4

Survey

MASUI - 'SOL' A2 music video

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Ancillary text survey

In order to gain some audience feedback in relation to my ancillary texts I decided to create a short survey asking a series of questions about attitudes towards my website home page. I will use the data gathered within my evaluation questions. 



http://tyanaalex.wix.com/mausi 

Above is a link to my website home page, please visit the website then complete the short survey below. 

Survey

Website home page evaluation

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Magazine production (ancillary text)

As previously discussed for one of my ancillary texts I have decided to create a magazine advert for my chosen artist. After coming to this conclusion I conducted some product research and I am now in the stages of creating my final magazine ad. 

In order to create my advertisment for my chosen band I felt that I would be achieve the out come that I wanted through the use of a word document. Although simplistic, word is able to format images, add various shapes and borders. 

My desired outcome was one that was minimalist yet eye catching - I did not want to distract the viewer with too much information or imagery. In order to create the magazine add I created the shapes and text that i wanted to add a simply placed them over my image.

Below is a screen shot from Word which is able to show the beginnings of my add and how it is progressing.

The picture

During the photo shoot, in total, I took around 30 photos with Megan in various poses. After going through each photo I decided that these three were my favorites and the ones I felt would look good as a part of my ancillary texts.

Once choosing these three photos I edited the brightness, shadow and exposure in order to achieve this dusty and bright effect.

                 

Creating the picture

As a part of my ancillary texts my group an I decided that we wanted to create our own image that would be able to feature as a part of our chosen ancillary products. 

Rather that choosing an image that can be found on the internet, I like the idea of creating my own image that I would be able to use as a part of my website and my magazine advertisement. I wanted the image to be able to resemble album artwork as many of the bands that I researched use their album photo on their websites and as a part of their magazine advertisements. 

I felt that creating my own image would give me more freedom in relation to how I wanted the image to turn out. As a group we disused potential ideas for our final photo and came to an agreement that we wanted our photo to be bright with a colorful back ground as well as feature the main girl that appears in the music video. 

In order to create the photo there needed to be plain white back ground that colour would be able to be added to. In order to achieve the we decided to use a blank white canvas. The canvases that were available to buy were not big enough in size for the effect my group and I wished to achieve so, alternately we created our own canvas. Megan gathered the materials and made the canvas, with help of her step dad, by using a white cloth material and wooded sticks for the edges. 

Once the canvas was completed we were then able to cover the canvas in colour. This process was fairly straight forward and was achieved by mixing poster paint with water and splattering it over the canvas.

We decided to do this outside with the canvas laid on the grass due the process being quite messy. 

once the canvas was covered we left it to dry over night and came back to it the next morning which was when we took the photo. 



Taking the photo during the morning was beneficial as this provided natural light which was able to emphasis the colours. Before the photo could be taken we noted that we a person to be stood either side so that the canvas could be pulled taught to remove any creases. considering that there are only three people in my group and Megan and I were unable to hold the canvas we called upon the help of our friend Elliot to come hold the canvas in place whilst the photo was being taken.

 After the canvas was taught the photo was ready to be taken. Collectively we felt that it would look better if Megan was dressed in all white clothing as this would help the background colour to stand out.

Now that the photos have been taken I will now choose the ones that I am most happy with and edit them to make the look more appealing and professional. 

Props

From previous research into existing products and having past experience in relation to creating a media production I understand the relevance of props and how the connotations of certain objects can have an effect on the audience. 

The first prop the my group and I secured was the bracelet. Apart from the girl her self, I really felt the the two settings of my product needed an item that was able to connect the two and bring the parallels together. A piece of jewelry felt an appropriate item that would be able to intertwine both settings. The bracelet it's self is able to signify a bond between the pair as well as symbolize the idea that they are together even when apart and the memory of what once was.  

The other main prop that featured in my product was a part of costume, a pair of sunglasses. Initially the sunglasses were used as a part of my product as a way to portray to the audience the idea that the scenes that they were viewing were taking place in a different season. I felt that sunglasses were an effective way of achieving this as when paired with light clothing and green scenery, sunglasses are able to help emphasis a change in season and place emphasis on a more summer like tone to the imagery. 

Another way in which the sunglasses played significance in my product was in relation to the male characters identity. The focus of my music video is the girl as it follows her story and her emotions, I didn't want the onset on a male character to be distracting to the audience and neither did I want the audience to establish as much of a connection with Joe as they would Megan. I felt that the sunglasses were able to mask Joe's identity is subtle way without drawing to much attention away from the overall message of the video. 

Website production (ancillary texts)

As previously discussed for one of my ancillary texts I have decided to create a website. After coming to the conclusion I conducted some product research and I am now in the stages of creating my website. 

In order to create the website for my chosen band I decided it would be best accomplished with the use of a web page builder. These website that allow the user to create their own pages are beneficial to use as they provide the user with a good structure and format that can be used easily. 

The web page creator I decided to use was a website called Wix. I found the Wix website after searching for a web creator and after looking at several I decided that Wix would be the most appropriate for what I was trying to achieve. I was drawn to the Wix creator as it maintained a simple format but still enabled me to add a good amount of detail into my chosen design. I was also drawn to Wix as it was full with a variety of feature that I felt would be able to give my website the professional appearance that I desired. 

Below is a screen shot from Wix which is able to show a page of my website and how it is progressing. 

I felt very conformable using Wix as it provided me with creative freedom and a range of formats that could be chosen from. Next I will continue with my website creation as well as focus on my other ancillary.  

Additional Production

After our previous session of filming my group and I were unhappy with several shots and were were also unsure of the outfit worn by our male lead. Due to these areas in which we felt could be improved we decided to schedule and new date in order to secure some more shots.

Below is an example of one of the shots we attained during a second round of filming.

Although it would have been better if we were able to have secured that shots we needed in the way we wanted first time i feel that my group and I were able to demonstrate good time management in relation to how we efficiently rescheduled our production plans.

Overall after filming the scenes again we were must more happy with the shots and I feel that the improved quality will help my final product to come across as professional and well executed.

Ancillary Text – Website (Research)

Melancholia (2011)

MELANCHOLIA IMDb SYNOPSIS

Recently I watched a film titled Melancholia which is directed by Lars Von Trier. I am a fan of his films as they often include beautiful and striking visuals as well as detailed, complex and somewhat dark story lines, characters and undertones, and Melancholia contained a perfect blend of all. 

I did not watch this film alone, I watched it with my mother and the two of us could not be more different even if we tried. From the trailer and my knowledge of Lars Von Triers cinematic style I knew she'd hate it - and I was correct. To her this film was nothing more than a film about a bratty women with an uptight sister with little to no soundtrack and shaky camera work, yet to me it was once of the most beautiful, thought provoking and detailed films that I have watched to date and these differences in opinion are what led me to the question of how could this possibly be? 

The fact is we both sat there for the same length of time, we both watched the same images and listened to the same music and heard the same dialogue delivered by the characters, yet it effected the two of us in completely different ways.

From this I was able to draw on the conclusion that you cannot please everyone, when creating a product you should include what you want to include and approach it from the angle that you see best, because someone is always going to love it in the same way some one is going to take a disliking to it. It is something that is subjective and question of how us as individuals interpret certain texts and this is what to me film is all about. Yes, including certain actors or soundtracks because you know that they will be popular is important as it can not be denied that products are made to make money. But when the soul desire of your creation is to please someone else I think that it can tarnish and taint everything that it means to be creative.  

I doubt that my mother can even remember the name of the film, but to me it was able to express the delicate yet hardened nature of the human being and highlight that in times of crisis we all behave and react differently.Ultimately and what really inspired this blog post is that audience is important but you should not let the view or opinion of someone else limit nor censor your creativity. 

Additional production

As we entered the further stages of our production, my group and I decided to continue with filming in order to obtain our city scenes. We scheduled to film in Oxford city center as I have disused in a previous blog post, the conditions for filming on this day were perfect as it was bright but still cloudy and it was fairly busy with people. As in the past, in order to make sure we got the most out of time filming my group and I made sure that we went to location with our shot-list and storyboard. During our time in oxford we were able to film all the shots that we had planned for as well as film some shots that were more spontaneous such as a telephone box which caught my attention, other shots were obtained more passively for example below, the shot of Megan putting money in the machine. I filmed this just to test the camera was working accordingly and we watched back and found that we liked the way that it looked. Having structure to the way that we film is important and a necessary part of ensuring that all shots required are gathered, but also the fact the we gave our self some creative freedom allowed us to get some shots that were not planned for which we may use or not.

The Logo

After researching existing musical artists and bands I found that many have a logo that features on their products, websites and on any marketing that the band may be involved with. From this I decided to create my own logo to fit the purposes of my ancillary texts and above shows my final logo design. 

Logo design (ancillary texts)

Below is a presentation that  I created in order to show how I created the logo that I will use as a part of my ancillary texts.

Ancillary text - magazine advert (Research)

Part of my final brief includes 3 ancillary texts, two of which a i have to complete as part of a promotional package for my music video. One of the texts i decided to complete was a magazine advertisement for my music video, below is a presentation of the initial research that I have taken in to existing adverts. 

It was important that I carried out this initial research as it helped me to get a better understanding of what sort of elements are to be included in a magazine advert. This will help me when I begin to design my own as I can refer back to my research in order to choose what I should include.