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

Media Technologies Summary
In the planning stages we clearly used technology such as the internet and television in order to research other music videos, CD's and magazine adverts are already out there which are all not particularly new expect for internet which is relatively new. However it was more the planning and creating of the products in which we had to us new media technologies which I'd never used before including iMovie, Sony HVR-A1E Camcorder, photoshop, and so on.
For the music video, at the very beginning we used a music video feature on iMovie to write the name of the video and so on and make it look professional. When it came to the opening shot, as said on the commentary we use an establishing shot of the sun and then move round to the shot of the tree in the park so the audience get a baring of their surroundings. We did not use a tripod for this and instead did this handheld as the tripod did not move how we would of liked it too and kept becoming for too stiff for what we wanted to do.
We used a lot of transitions to helps move smoothly from clip to clip particularly between both memory and present as well as using video FX to turn the image from colour to black and white for the past scenes. This is so we could make a clear difference between what was present day and what was past for the audience.
We also used a range of different shots so that we could get across different ideas, paying particular attention to facial expressions and body language as our actors could not actually talk so it was important for us to get out story put across by what the audience could see instead.
When filming it was a lot about timing, about when we should stop and start filming and also about continuity. For example when he looks at his phone when he just recieves a text from his girlfriend we had to make sure he was standing in the right place for when we switch shots from looking at him from a distance to looking over his shoulder which was quite difficult. This also occured for many other scenes.
We also used Final Cut in which we used blue card as a blue screen in order to go through what would be a photo into the next scene of which is a memory.
We also played with lighting to set the mood of each of the scenes both on set and on iMovie when editing as I thought this was important as well as playing with different transitions such as cross dissolve and fade as I thought these looked the most professional.
My main issue was the fact that when we put it onto the internet using youtube.com it spoiled a lot of the quality as someone from my feedback pointed out which is unofurtunate as it means that a lot of the key images are unclear. Take for example the text messaging scenes, we are unable to see what is being said and this is down to using internet technology as so this is something to consider.

For the ancillary products I used a combination of programs to help produce the best outcome I possibly could. I used the likes of Photoshop, Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 aswell as simply Paint.net, all of which have useful tools that I know how to work to the best of my ability. The digipak was mainly created on photoshop as it was easy to cut out the images and place them where I wanted them to. Also with the use of clone and other such tools it was really useful to create my digipak. However when it came to adding the barcode and the legal script I used Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 as I know this program well and it does not pixelate as much as simple Paint does. With the magazine advertisement I used Paint.net for it's magic wand tool as I have been using it for years and so it came easily to me. The magic wand tool I had to use for a lot of the writing as it was going against a background. I also used contrast to help contrast the images and then used a glow effect from Photoshop to use around the edges of the album front cover to make it stand out and really look special.

For my evaluation stages I used Toshiba Satellite pro L300 laptop's in built webcam and microphone in order to record my audience feedback and my commentary work. It was good because it was very simple to use, yet unfortunately there was quite a bit of white noise which I could not control. However it did the job and I think works well. I had to put the clips on to windows movie maker to edit them slightly as i did not have iMovie to hand and also had to make the file sizes a lot smaller which could of perhaps effected the quality slightly but I also uploaded them to youtube.com which also could of effected the quality unfortunately.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

My first audience feedback took place very briefly as I wanted to see if there was any changes I could make before making it my final piece. I only asked 3 people as I felt I only wanted to ask a small amount of people and make a quick finding on anything that could be improved as I felt that by using my own opinion would be biased. The key thing which I found was that the magazine advert needed to have more of a look of professionalism and my 3 people all came back with the fact that it was missing the usual logos such as the iTunes logo and the record label. This I would of not been able to notice on my own and so I decided to add that on as I wanted it to look as professional as possible. Nothing else particularly came back bad and so these were the only things I changed.
However after only taking out a brief feedback session I decided to do a proper audience feedback of my overall final products and find out what people really thought. I asked 10 people overall, 5 of which I filmed or audio recorded their answer, giving them open question so I could get proper feedback instead of set questions in which I gave them the answers as I felt this way I would get proper and much more useful answers. I asked all 10 of them 3 questions which were:
1. Overall what do you like about the music video, digipak cover and magazine advert?
2. What do you think could be improved?
3. What would you give each of them out of 10?
They all then were given the chance to answer these questions in whatever way they wanted. It was only 5 of which actually wanted to be recorded and the other 5 wished to be left anonymous.
Here are the videos:
Male, 50+


Female, 13


Female, 50+


Female, 40+


Male, 18

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I also asked two females which were aged 18 and 16, as well as 3 males which were two were aged 18 and one which was 20.
I decided to ask a variety of ages as when putting a music video onto television it is not always going to be restricted to one age group. Dealing with the topic suicide I also thought it was important to ask someone of a young age so I asked someone of the age of 13 whether they were affected by this theme. When asked she said that no she was not at all disturbed by the scene of suicide and so with this in mind it meant that it would not be so upsetting for other younger viewers and would perhaps not create such a stir with parental figures. I also wanted to ask people of an older age as they would of course be watching the television as well and I wanted to know their opinion as well. They also were not keen by the suicide idea but out of all the 10 people I asked not one of them said that it upset them and I think this was because we did it in such a tasteful way. I asked a lot more people between the age of 13 – 20 as this was going to be our target audience so it was important I got their input. All of them seemed to enjoy the video in particular, the park scene in which they spin round on the roundabout as one of them said that they liked the effect it had and felt like you were actually the other person watching from their point of view. The other most favourite scene by an outstanding 60% was when we used blue screen when he was looking at the picture of him and his girlfriend in the park and it actually moved to that scene. I was surprised by this outcome as I felt that it was not the tidiest of transformations, however a lot of my audience enjoyed this scene the most. However they did find some fault with the music video, particularly with the party scene which we had the most trouble with and so I completely agree with them which was the fact that it was quite unclear. Due to us not having the right lighting equipment that all top movie producers have we were unable to make the image very clear, yet as people were able to indentify what it was it meant they we were able to get our message across but next time we will need to find a better way round this. Also another interesting point which came up quite a lot was the idea that perhaps the happy memories should have been in colour and the sad scenes should have been in black and white which admittedly I had never thought of. Yet luckily our point managed to get across about highlighting the differences between past and present which was our main aim.
With the magazine advert a lot of people liked the fact that the CD looked as if it glowed as it made it look more desirable. Not only this but they liked they way in which the CD cover and the horizon background really contrasted to help it stand out and could not believe how professional it looked. No one could find any fault with the advert which I was particularly pleased about.
The digipak a lot of people did like yet it never managed to receive a 10/10 like the other two products which is an interesting point. Although people liked the neon green standing out on the black background what put a lot of people off was the layout itself on the front cover. A lot of people picked out that the word “gravity” should have been centralized which we did not consider. However everyone still thought it looked professional, particularly with the use of the legal writing on it a long with the barcode and said it looked very realistic.
Overall I think that the positive definitely outweighed the negative in our work and generally everyone we asked did like our products very much. The combination of our 3 products worked well together and everyone found them very appealing. I feel from the feedback if we take into consideration the constructive criticism which I asked specifically for I feel that if we put our product out on the market it would do very well and I am very pleased with the outcome.


Music Video Results Out of 10

Digipak Results Out of 10

Magazine Advert Results Out of 10


As you can see from the graphs the magazine advert was the clearly the overall favourite with the music video second and the digipak last, not recieving one 10/10 which is unfortunate. From the feedback I found that a lot of their comments supported this result.

*Apologies for the quality of the recordings.

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

With our project, “Horizons” by Forgetting Gravity it was important that we stuck to cross media advertising theory in order to tie the three products together so that they become more recognizable. From the beginning with decided that the genre of music and the song title itself were the most important aspects to represent as this is would be its main selling point. We wanted to portray a drum and bass club style genre of music which we can see portrayed through the song itself and the digipak cover through the image of a dancing crowd in the background. This ties in nicely with the party memory scene which also is black and white and lots of people dancing so we managed to continue this ideology through our work.

It can also be found on the magazine advert through the image of the digipak front cover. Not only this but by having a ‘glow’ around the image of the digipak makes it seem as if it is in the spotlight which is another party related lighting technique. Also by using the album cover on this magazine advert it made sure that the product was easily identifiable and let the consumers know what to look for if or when they were to buy it themselves.
By using similar locations between the magazine advert and the video, again it really ties in with one another and the audience can spot the connection easily. Also by having a sunset Horizon as the background it also summarizes the whole song and project itself. Not only this but we used the same fonts between both the ancillary products by using the font called “Birth of a Hero” which I had find from a website and that really struck me as interesting and appealing as it has an ‘erosive’ look to it which I thought tied in well with this music genre. This was used for both the main title of the magazine advert and the names of the magazines that provided the quotes. Also it is used on the digipak cover as the main title “Horizons” on the front as well as being used for the track listings so throughout those two products there is an obvious flow.
However, we wanted to use an image of the band which we had not used on any of the other products as we felt we needed to acknowledge the band for their creations as without them there would be no song, yet we felt we would not put it on the front cover as they are not what people would recognize from watching the video as they do not star in it. This is because we felt for a music video with an actual storyline to it we did not need the band to appear in it because it was something that had a serious message in which we wanted to focus on instead. For the CD itself we thought it would be ok to have them on there as it is not just focused on the single “Horizons” and does have other songs on there so we wanted a much more generalized look.
I think overall our main product and ancillary products do relate well with one another to a certain extent in a more subtle way, all having certain elements which help link them to one another. I feel that some of the links may not be so obvious as others but we thought hard in ways to make our products relate whilst still looking tasteful. I think as a whole our combination is very effective and when working together creates a very appealing package that the target audience and in fact people of all ages would enjoy.

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

Part 1


Part 2
I felt the mise-en-scene would be an important part of our video as it was important to be a ble to set the right tone within the film. Therefore when it came to setting and location it was key that we should real places to help with the realism of our piece. Also the props were significant to help the audience understand what was taking place. For example the use of pills which the female lead uses to commit suicide was important as otherwise people would not know what was going on. Another example of use of props was for the picnic scene where we used typical picnic utensils to help set the scene, such as picnic basket, blanket, thermos and even food. In addition, costume was crucial as we wanted to make sure we targeted the right audience and help relate to that target audience. We wanted them to be fashionable as this relates heavily to the conventions of music videos. When it came to our actors we wanted to again relate to our young target audience by using young adults to act within our video. This was so the audience could feel much closer to the characters and feel more of a connection. Lighting was another important part of setting the right tone in our work and with the many different scenes it varied significantly. For example, for the party scene it was important to create a dark setting but have bright lights and make it clear it was a party and so we thought it was a good idea to use a strobe light which is seen in a lot of party scenes. I feel this worked well as it made a flashing effect which relates to drum and bass music videos however it did not agree with the camera so well and so in the future we would need to find a way around this.
For the Ancillary Products we wanted to do something simple and recognisable for the fans that were eye catching and fitted to that genre of music. Looking from album covers such as Chase and Status ‘Against All Odds’ we decided to do something straightforward that would use bright colours to attract peoples attention and with our final product we thought that by having actual fans dancing to the band’s music it would help audiences who do not know the band so well identify what genre the band is. By having a similar background the back and the same colour scheme we thought would look a lot more appealing as it would help both the back and front flow and work together well. Also, by having a contrasting green background for the listings with people dancing in the background it helps make it clearer to read and also makes the album look more exciting as for the target audience which is mainly teenagers, this image looks appealing and could even go as far as inspiring the audience to use the bands music to create their very own similar scene.
In relation to the magazine advert we wanted something that would show the digital cover so that the audience would know what to look for if they were to buy the album, yet we wanted a contrasting background to help the album cover stand out. I also felt that by putting the image of the cover directly in the middle of the page it would therefore be the centre of attention and be what consumer is drawn to. We experimented with a few backgrounds but in the end I felt that the idealistic scene of a horizon sunset was the best image to use because it links in with main song itself ‘Horizons’ and also creates a calm, idyllic setting which I thought could potentially subconsciously draw the reader of the magazine in as it seems such a nice location. Also it creates a glowing effect on the album cover itself which makes it seem quite special and again draws the audience in. From a lot of adverts I have seen, that main thing they use to help sell their album is to use quotes from well known music magazines saying how good the album is. By doing this they are then appealing to these magazines’ already huge fan base and so I thought this would also be useful for our advert as it would help increase the ability to sell the product and also make it more realistic in comparison to other adverts. Also by using the well known names of the magazines, Kerrang, NME and MOJO in the same font as the main title ’Horizons’ it also helped them stand out. I also remembered to put the website of the band like many other advertisements have done to help promote the band’s website also.