Evaluation AS vs A2

AS
- Blogger
At AS I only really posted evaluation questions as essay-type answers posted into blogger with a few pictures.

A2
- iMovie
As a group we used this to present an answer to question 1, we had our video playing and clips of videos that we were inspired by and was speaking over the top.
- Prezi
This was used as a more creative way to present work. I used it to evaluate my digipack, so it was helpful to be able to move around it and comment on specific sections
- Photoshop
I used this in question 4 where we had to describe and evaluate how we used technology. I made it look like a catalogue so there was a big image of all our hardware and software that we used and then each had a description of how it was used to go with it.
- Blogger
I used this to post some questions in draft form, just to get a feel for the written part of them.

An obvious conclusion I can draw from this, in terms of how I have improved, is that at A2 I have used a wider range of methods when posting the evaluation questions. I got a lower grade in my AS coursework than I expected, but I think my evaluation is where I let myself down. Just doing blog posts was a boring method. in A2 I used a wider range of technologies in y evaluation work and I feel this was a lot more effective.

Post Production Task A2

Post Production at A2:
-iMovie
I used iMovie to edit my video footage into the music video
- cutting the clips to fit the storyboard and make them right with the song
- cropping shots to frame them right
- getting the cut speed right to make it fast paced
- fading the start from black
- sped some shots up slightly to fit music

-Photshop
I used photoshop to produce my digipack at A2
- changing the colour of my image for black and white effect - posterize
- adding a coloured pattern background
- layout of text on page
- adding different images of the band

Post Production Task AS

Post Production at AS:
-Photoshop
I used photoshop to produce my magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread.
In post production I used this to:
- change my image to black and white
- lasso tool to cut out my image
- playing with fonts and colour schemes
- shaping text boxes and trying different layouts
- cropping images on contents page

Planning and research essay

Planning and research. 

When planning for my work, I used a range of research methods. I’d say that I used secondary research more as I was influenced by existing texts in most pieces. For the magazine, music video and digipack I had to familiarise myself with the conventions of each of these. For magazine examples, I looked through my own existing collection of music magazines and then at examples on the internet. I used a similar approach to the digipack, I scrolled through my iTunes and looked at album covers to draw inspiration. I had a fairly big collection of album covers but again I searched the internet for existing examples. When researching music videos I used mainly secondary research, in that most research was done through watching videos on youtube. The main primary research I used was through audience feedback, I found this very helpful. If I liked my work then I would be happy, but I was producing it for a wider audience so other’s opinions helped me in seeing what I needed to improve. I also trusted the opinion of my teachers who themselves had good knowledge of existing texts in magazines, music videos and digipacks. Most of my research was very useful, it was also good in that it didn’t cost me anything or I had no trouble accessing it. 

In terms of organising my research, blogger was the main factor. This allowed me to keep a journal of all my work and was easy to find examples that I had posted through the labels I had put on them. An element of blogger that I used more effectively at A2 was the use of labeling, which I had too as I posted many different examples of music videos in particular. I used websites such as Scribd to let me post directly from Word or Pages, so that if I had analysed some research on those programs I could post it without having to try and convert it into the blogger posting page. There were some problems that I encountered throughout my coursework with blogger, for example sometimes youtube videos could not be embedded, which wasn’t too much of a hinderance but an annoyance to not have all examples I needed in one place. 

Once I had finished researching the existing texts, I had built up a knowledge and began planning. This is a process I used in all pieces of work. I had to produce drafts for each piece of work, for my magazine I focused on the layout and images as I could put the article itself in on the final draft. I played around with photoshop to come up with 2/3 of each section; cover, contents page and double page spread. From audience feedback I saw what was the most effective layout or image and this factored into my final piece. I did a very similar thing with my digipack. For the music video, however this was a different process. Filming and editing a video takes longer than making a magazine or CD cover on photoshop. For the draft, in our group, we decided to try and make our video as close to a final draft as we could, so we put a lot of effort into our draft. Our audience feedback was very positive, this made us feel like we had made a very good decision to go full-out for the draft instead of messing about and risking relying on a final draft that we wouldn’t have had as much to time to improve. Rather than have to go through the hassle of re-filming, we only had to re-edit parts of the music video as we had planned. 

The music video was the first time that there was multiple personnel needed. This meant we had to be a lot more organised than in AS work, where we had to organise with one person for a photo shoot. We had to go through relative hassle in making sure everyone was available at the same time, we had to change 2 people in the band as they were simply too busy to film for us. Luckily we had some good replacements. 

Our music video featured 2 different types of shots, ones where the band had instruments and ones without. This meant we had to come up with a way of scheduling the shots, we did this so that we didn’t shoot in the order of the storyboard but in an order so we could be time effective. We filmed at night, we didn’t have to worry about losing light but we did have to potential problem of the weather changing, as there was heavy rainfall in the days leading up to filming. This would have been disastrous as it would have ruined continuity for the whole video and been dangerous for the electronic equipment. 

Overall, I think I used one critical part of producing the work, research and planning to good effect. Even though we had to stick to a schedule made by our teacher which included research and planning, if I was to try and produce a piece of work like the magazine, digipack or video I made I would probably use similar research and planning methods. I think the planning, for the music video in particular, was perfect and allowed us to comfortably produce a music video in the time allowed and to a good standard. The use of drafting is a skill that is very useful, particularly combined with audience feedback as you can improve your work on someone else’s opinion, rather than just your own. 

Work that is create based (entirely or in part) on older material.

Fatboy Slim uses samples of other songs in may of his tracks; Rockafeller Skank is a good example of this:



Voice sample:




Other Samples:










Norman cook had the rights to each song and all the royalties went to the artists he sampled from and none to himself.

Anything can be considered cool in an ironic 'I know it's bad, but it's so bad it's good' way

Postmodernism and music

Postmodernism and Music V2

Inglorious Basterds Post Modern Essay Response

IB Postmodern Essay

Playlist CD cover

Creativity Essay

Creativity 

For my music magazine, video and digipack I feel I used my creativity to good effect. One clear limitation in all of the projects were they were in the music genre. I am interested in music and read music magazines fairly regularly so I did have an existing knowledge of magazines, music videos and CD digipacks. 

The theory ‘Media producers can learn nothing from studying the conventions of old texts’ is one that I disagree with. From other texts and further research a became aware of the conventions and features of each type of work. For example when researching music videos, Radiohead music videos were ones that broke the conventions, I realised this would have been difficult to emulate in my own work. 

For my magazine I looked at some of the popular indie music magazine, as that was the music genre I aimed my magazine to fit. NME, Q, Clash were a few examples of ones I looked at to get a feel for the conventions. I then looked at other magazines from different genres/topics. I looked at mens magazine Esquire and even the football magazine Fourfourtwo to get a wider aspect of magazine layout, conventions, images etc. These examples gave me a better knowledge to put different elements in my work. 

I used a fairly unconventional full-length body shot of my model for the front cover, this was difficult to fit cover-lines and other text around. I used a fairly simplistic colour scheme also. I used Adobe Photoshop in my magazine production, this allowed me to do anything really, the range of tools and it’s easy interface allowed me to show my creativity in full and I was not limited in this way. There is a theory: ‘‘technology has taken all the creativity out of media production’’. In the example I have given with my experience of photoshop I disagree with that theory as I believe it enhances creativity in media production. 

My music video was where I felt I was most creative. It was recommended to film in light conditions as lightning up a band would be hard. A decision was made to use car headlights for lighting, this would be a cheap and easily accessible alternative to professional studio lighting for example. Another difficulty with filming in dark conditions is that a poor quality camera would make the end product look grainy, therefore not professional. The camera that was available was a Canon 500D fortunately, which has superb video recording abilities. 

The fictional band that we created in our group was first intended to be ‘indie’. Leading up to the filming of the video we decided to change this. Rather than try and make our band members look unnatural and try to emulate an ‘indie’ vibe we decided to let them be like themselves a bit more. This led to them being more like a ‘britpop’ genre band, in particular our lead singer. Where other people may have tried to make their band members imitate a certain genre or artist, our creativity allowed us to come up with the idea of challenging this and allowing the band to be completely natural. This led to a more authentic end product. 

For my digipack and poster I decided to emulate and was inspired by Razorlight - Razorlight’s album cover. This cover features the 4 band members standing in a very simple black & white colour scheme. I used the feature of the 4 band members on the cover, I feel this gave an iconic look to the band. I was arguably most creative in this production as I feel I was most spontaneous, as a sort of impulse decision I decided to use a pattern on the inside covers. I had used a blue and red theme throughout so I decide to use these colours for the pattern. I repeated a block-shape on photoshop and was very pleased with the end product. 

For all my pieces of work in Media, I feel as though I have been creative in many different senses. I am definitely inspired by existing work, as I learn the elements and features of each type of product. I am also inspired in the way that, if I see something I like or feel will work well in my work, I will try and emulate or use that element or feature in my work. Rather than copy it completely and not be creative at all, I had to adapt these features to fit my work.