My research, planning and evaluation skills have developed from As to A2. Although using similar technology in both years, during A2 my knowledge of these technologies has increased greatly. For my both my As and A2 flat plans, I created them using Publisher due to the flatplans being made as a simple plan and publisher being a simple way to do this. However, when actually making the Magazine in As, I used Photoshop due to its ability to both edit photographs and create the magazine together. When doing my Ancillary double-page spread and the newspaper article, I used Adobe InDesign, as it is more precise and professional due to its ability to plan out where everything goes through the use of boxes before actually doing it, meaning that you don't have to keep referring back to the ancillary task like during As. Additionally, with InDesign, you can import photoshop files with photographs into your InDesign document and if needed go back and edit the photograph which, once saved, will change the image on the InDesign document into the latest save of that file. On many occasions during As, I had to redo the editing on images because I had made a mistake, meaning I would have to keep deleting and replacing the photo which took up a lot of my time editing. Whereas, with InDesign, re-editing the image is simple and is automatically is changed on the document. Additionally, with InDesign, it is easier to create columns for your text without them being at different heights, making it look more professional.
As with this year, last year I used Blogger in order to record my research, planning and evaluation. However, last year, many of my posts were brief and I didn't update my progress as I have this year which helped when planning ahead.
Additionally, last year I conducted only one set of audience feedback on Survey Monkey, compared to the one written and two on Survey Monkey audience feedback which allowed me to know how I could develop my work along the way, instead of gathering feedback at the start and from there hoping the audience would like what I had done, like with AS.
Last year, in order to take the photographs for my magazine, I used a bridging camera to do so. Although being very similar to a DSLR camera, this year I used a Nikon DSLR camera to record all of my footage and take any photos I needed. By recording film with the camera, I developed my skills and knowledge of the camera. Additionally, I had to record audio externally and once editing, merge the audio with the video. For editing in A2, I used Premier pro which I had no experience of previously. Doing so, I have greatly developed my knowledge of editing and audio editing as prior to A2, I only had very little knowledge of Final Cut Pro after making a minute long video in As that included very little editing.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
After my work was finished, I created a survey on Survey Monkey in order to gave
audience feedback from both the intended audience and younger audiences.
The questions I asked were based on decisions made during
the editing and creating process. Here are the questions:
1. Do you feel the introductory section (the concert videos)
was too long?
2. Were there any parts of the documentary where the audio
was out of sync? If so, which part?
3. Do you feel that intertwining the interviews with
Billie's Mam and Sister in with interview parts with Billie was effective? If
so, why?
4. Did the background music distract from the actual
content?
5. Do you feel that using multiple camera shots (the black
and white shots) was effective? If so, why?
6. During the concert footage at the end, do you feel that
the photographs clearly represent the narrative being shown? (Billie going to a
band signing/meeting her favourite band)
7. If this had been a full documentary and not just the
first 5 minutes, do you feel the concert footage/photographs at the end would
have been a good transition from the interview with the emo fan, to another fan
of a different genre? If so, Why?
8. Do you feel my double page spread from a listings
magazine clearly explains what the documentary is about?
9. Is the information on my newspaper advert clear enough to
allow the audience to know when and where the documentary will be aired? If
not, why?
10. Is there anything you would improve about the
documentary/ancillary tasks?
7. If this had been a full documentary and not just the first 5 minutes, do you feel the concert footage/photographs at the end would have been a good transition from the interview with the emo fan, to another fan of a different genre? If so, Why?
8. Do you feel my double page spread from a listings magazine clearly explains what the documentary is about? 9. Is the information on my newspaper advert clear enough to allow the audience to know when and where the documentary will be aired? If not, why?
10. Is there anything you would improve about the documentary/ancillary tasks?
Here
is a power point I have created for my audience feedback:
As I was creating a Documentary
about music fans – the first 5 minutes being focussed around an emo fan – when
making my two ancillary tasks, the double-page spread and the newspaper
advertisement, I had to make a clear link between the documentary and the two
ancillary tasks. Doing so, would ensure continuity among the tasks when placed
alongside each other so that it is clear that they are linked.
The first five minutes of the
documentary was about an emo fan who listens to bands such as My Chemical
Romance who, during the height of their career, were associated with wearing heavy
eyeliner with black, red and white clothing, which are commonly associated with
the emo community. I attempted to link Billie, my main character, to this by
requesting she wear a brand t-shirt and eyeliner for the interview sections in
order to further fit the stereotype of a typical emo. Additionally, situating
the interview in her bedroom with the posters in the background represent a
stereotypical emo’s bedroom being covered in band posters and concert tickets.
However, around the years of 2007-2010, being emo became heavily stigmatized
and was associated with self-harm and depression which I have made a point to
not include in my documentary when introducing Billie, as the whole message of
the documentary is telling the audience that music doesn’t negatively affect
people and being an Emo fan doesn’t necessarily force you into self-harm and
depression. Although it is likely that when the audience are being presented
with the documentary that they will interpret it in a negotiated way – both
accepting and rejecting the message, most likely due to seeing Emo fans who fit
the negative stereotype or reading the twisted news stories surrounding the
genre -which is an example of Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding theory. Linking
with Emo in general, I decided to use the colours of red, black and white
associated with My Chemical Romance, in addition to the colour grey, for my
colour palette in which I based my double-page spread and advertisement around.
All of the colours I used were taken from the Channel 4’s colour palette stated
from the document on their website about their advertising style.
As my documentary is catered
towards Channel 4, I felt it was necessary to research their advertising style
– more so for the newspaper advertisement. When doing my deconstructions of
Newspaper adverts, there was one for the Channel 4 documentary series, One Born
Every Minute, so when doing my double-page spread, I searched for a double-page
spread for the same documentary series. From this, I looked for similarities
between the two. Despite being made by different companies, I found that both
had images that were associated with the programme, such as the image of babies
on the advertisement and the image of the nurses holding babies on the article
– linking to the documentary as it is likely that those babies were featured
during it – showing continuity between the article, advertisement and the
programme. Because of this, I decided to use a photograph of Billie in the
article that was featured in the documentary in order to create continuity.
For my double-page spread, I felt
that even with the image of Billie, the page felt too empty and disconnected
from the documentary and advertisement. Therefore, I decided that the image
that I used in the background of my Channel 4 style advertisement would also be
the background of my article – however I firstly decreased the brightness of
the image and applied a Gaussian Blur to it on Photoshop to make it less
distracting to the readers. The image that I used for both backgrounds was a
photograph of several piles of CDs to link with the documentary being about
music and fans of music. Additionally, featured in the image are CDs by My
Chemical Romance which links in with Billie, the emo fan.
Overall, when creating my
ancillary tasks, I tried to make them link as closely to my documentary as
possible, making everyone fully aware that the documentary is about music
without even seeing it and only seeing the article and advertisement. Due to
this, I feel that I have been successful in creating links and continuity
between the three tasks, although I feel that certain aspects aren’t as
effective as others – such as the image of Billie in the article not
necessarily making it 100% clear that she is an emo fan.
In what ways does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Here is my directors commentary that I have uploaded to Vocaroo
The layout was inspired by articles that Channel 4 often publish in newspapers - a simplistic approach of an image with grey boxes of text along with a grey Channel 4 logo in the same colour.
To create this, I referred to this document. I made sure that I used a colour from their colour palette and a font similar to the Channel 4 font.
