Dear Moderator

Thanks alot for looking through my individual and group blog, I hope you enjoy them. To the right I have linked my group blog, my teachers blog and then the rest of my group members individual blogs. All these other blogs also link back to my blog in the same way. My teachers blog has links to all the individual blogs and all the group blogs too.

My individual blog includes my initial ideas and planning. It mainly consists of early project work from earlier stages where we where not yet working in groups. From then on it includes reflections of group work and some progress reports. At the end you will find my answers to the evaluation questions  in the form of a video of a group discussion which we filmed and participated in. These videos have also been posted in full on the group blog.

My group blog is where you will find evidence of my group's planning and project development work. It also includes ant research that we did together which inspired or influenced our final project.

As a group our decision was to produce an album cover and a website homepage; hosted on Myspace.com, to go with our music video. All of these elements are linked to both my individual and group blogs.

I hope that you are able to easily find your way around my blogs, all the posts are also organised in oder of date from the beginning of the project in June 2009 until we finished in December 2009. I have tagged every post with a label to identify whether it belongs to my research, planning or evaluation. I have used this system on my individual and group blogs however on my group blog I have also tagged any post I contributed to or was individually responsible for with my name.

Thanks

Tomas Deason 5245

Evaluation Q4

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

In this question is was my role to open the question and start discussion, it was my job to bring up new technologies and move on as much as possible to help the group as this was one of the questions I prepared. However I had to let everyone say their piece, and the aim was for me to open discussion, rather than say the answer.

I prepared for this question and I had to talk about things such as the hardware and software we used, the equipment we used and how it has progressed from our AS levels. I think that I definately said enough, without leaving the rest of my group with nothing to say. I am also glad that I was able to develop on some points where otherwise we may have been too brief, this is particularly to do with some of the more technical aspects.

As I was the one out of the group to prepare for this question I was able to extend and continue towards the end of question 3. I think that the question came together very well and we covered every aspect of technologies.

This image shows us in action with our equipment and technologies

Evaluation Q3

3. Audience Feedback


In this question my role was to discuss and build on points made by my group, as I was not 'chairing' the question but I did have to be part of the answer. I think that I did participate sufficiently and I did say a good balance of saying new points and building on points made.
I think that our group covered all the necessary aspects of the question and we definitely discussed everything to enough depth. We also said our opinions at various points which I thinik is definitely essential to the evaluation.

Evaluation Q2

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

In this question my role was to contribute to discussion, and try to build upon points made and add my own ideas and views. As a group we wanted to discuss the effctiveness of our brand and how we brought the platforms together to work in synergy. We wanted to discuss how we had created a brand for our artist.

Evaluation Q1

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

In this question we all prepared to talk about one aspect of our project each, I was given the album cover to talk about and so for this part of the question I opened discussion and introduced some ideas. The following video shows the album cover section of question 1, however the rest of the question was still covered by my group. The full version is on the Group Blog.

In question 1 we discussed all the media products we created and how the challenge or follow convention, we all discussed equally and and presented ideas as a group and as individuals. I feel like I was able to develop technically often and with the section on the album cover which I opened I feel that I was definately able to go deeper and try to present some personal ideas. I was able to talk in depth about what we did with the cover and why. I think that we covered everything that was necessary to be covered and I feel like everyone spoke their fair share throughout what was the longest question.

In this clip we reference some album covers and these are those covers...

Audience Feedback

We handed the questionnaires to 19 people after a screening, the people where made up from our primary and secondary target audience demographics.

1. Everybody we asked said the video looked proffessional.
Reasons why being things such as the changing clothes, effects, the fact there was so much going on, it was eye catching, that is was quirky and fun, and that there where bright colours.

3. Videos mention where actually some of the videos we referenced such as...
- Kesha - Tick Tock
- Duffy - Warwick Avenue
We feel like this is good because it shows perhaps that our video almost stands beside these videos.

4. The audiences understood the concepts behind our video and they seemed to appreciate that it was made up of concept and performance. Some of the themes written where: lost love, break up, London, femeninity, youth, independence and fun.

5. The genre was conveyed perfectly as our feedback all knew it was a pop song, with some even writing retro/alternative pop which is our exact genre.

6. Words used to describe Skye as an artist were quirky, likeable, young, pretty, individual, appealing, fun to watch, original, fashionable, flirty/sexy. This shows that they saw the sides of Skye we aimed to convey.

7. Channels written that our audience think our video would appear on include 4music, MTV, The Box, TMF, The Hits, MTV hits, NME, Q

8. Magazines written that our audience think our video would appear on include Time Out, Smash hits, mainstream music, NME, Glamour

9. When asked if they wanted to watch it several times over 74% said yes, 10% said no, 16% said maybe. These are definately positive results

10. About half of our audience said they would spend money to download the single

11. Favourite moments included the clothes changing, the split screens, the end shots, a lot of people liked the reaction shots, and loads of people loved it when Skye danced with the random guy.

12. We were given a few criticisms aswell:
- out of sync
- changes between black and white to colour where too sudden
- the audience wanted more retro clothes
- they wanted more reactions and random people
- one person did not like what the colour alterations did to our artists lips on the cover (probably not enough people pickedup on this to make it a real issue)

13. The whole audience feedback group felt that all the platforms came together and worked well to create an artist brandy. They thought it was glamarous, looked proffesional and most said the album cover was very good.

The feedback given really illustrates how much of a success our video has been, I think we caught a good balance in our video and I think that it manages to maintain the audiences interest throughout. I am happy with the feedback given.

Audience Questionnaire

In order to get some audience feedback we made an audience feedback form for our screening. This was to measure the success of our video against our target audience. These where the questions on the questionnaire...

1) Does the video look like a music video? - if so in what way?


2) Does it entertain you? - if so how

3) What other music videos would you compare it to?

4) Can you describe the narrative, theme or concept of the video?

5) What is the genre of this music video?

6) Can you tell us anything about the identity of the artist AND do you find her appealing?…if so, why?

7) Which music channel would you expect to see this playing on?

8) Which music magazine might it be reviewed in?

9) Would you want to watch it several times over?

10) Would you be willing to spend money to download this single?

11) What was your favourite moment in the video

12) Do you have any criticisms? – (be honest)

13) Do you like the look of the Album cover and Myspace? – do they fit with the video?