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.
Here is my double page spread for a listings magazine:
I decided to use the same background as my newspaper advert as using a plain white background made the double-page too simple and disconnected in terms of the documentary.
After gathering photos from the HMV All Time Low signing that Billie attended, I began to place these photographs in the end section of concert footage of Frnkiero And The Cellabration. Doing this allowed for my final section of the first 5 minutes to be less out of place. I also shortened this section of concert footage along with my introduction.
Today I finished my Newspaper advert. For the logo and box colour, I used a colour that Channel 4 use - I found the colours that they use from the booklet on their website. For my background, I decided to use a photograph of a pile of CDs, in order to relate to my documentary about music fans. I used the font Garamond for this - a font that I used in my double-page spread article. I would have used the font that Channel 4 use, however the font isn't available to download.
Today I started my second ancillary task: a newspaper advert. For this I took inspiration from channel 4 newspaper articles - as my documentary is for channel 4- and their simplistic but effective layout.
Channel 4’s eye-opening documentary, produced by AW
Films, follows the lives of five teenagers with a common interest of
music. Inspired by Music Nation, a series
of documentaries celebrating the glory days of the UK’s underground music scene
over the last 25 years, Road to Acceptance highlights
the hardships for British Teenagers when identifying with certain music
sub-cultures.
With the growing widespread popularity of Social-Media
sites such as Twitter and Tumblr and Media influence, comes the increase of cyberbullying and
negative stereotyping, particularly targeting fans of small sub-genres of music
such as “Emo” and “Punk”, whilst also being targeted are fans of award-winning
boyband One Direction.
Not only does the documentary introduce us to the five
teenagers, Billie, Mikey, Hannah, James, and Sonja, but to their lifestyles
revolving around their musical preferences. Whilst Sonja follows the lifestyle
of a 1970’s Punk, Billie faces the hardships of dealing with the cyberbullying
from identifying as an Emo. In contrast, Hannah the “Directioner” struggles
with getting people to take her seriously as a 17 year old One Direction fan.
Meeting the friends and family members of the teenagers
gives an insight into how music has had the ability to change someone’s
personality and what affect it can have
on close relationships.
As an audience, the documentary
makes you question how and why we judge people based on the way they look,
creating awareness of the damage that
the media can have on people that belong to a certain social group.
One of the leading issues discussed in the documentary is
how the Media has influenced the
opinions of the public through
fabricated and exaggerated news stories. One instanct that Emo girl
Billie discussed is how the Emo communities reputation was harmed after The
Daily Mail blamed the band “My Chemical Romance”- among the most popular in the
Emo sub-genre for a teenage girl’s suicide.
Billie discusses how the
articles written about the band tarred the reputation of the sub-genre, and is
one of the reasons why the term “Emo” is so stigmatized. Mother of Billie, Dot,
also discussed how reading those articles worried her.
“Obviously I was f***ing worried, as a Mam”
Watch Road
to Acceptance on Thursday 14th May, Channel 4 to
learn more about the five teenagers’ stories and hear what those closest to them really
think about their love for music.
Today I finished my first Ancillary task. For it, I used a four column article with the text wrapped around an Image of Billie - I used an image of her that was used in the documentary for continuity. Additionally, I decided on the documentary title which is: Road to Acceptance. I chose this title because it is a song by Green Day which included the lyric "We're all the same" which i felt was fitting for the article title of the documentary. Additionally, the documentary is about teenage music fans who are stereotyped and not taken seriously because of the music they listen to - the documentary is created to subvert the typical negative stereotypes.
Today I started creating my first ancillary task of a double page spread from a listings magazine. Originally, when creating my Flat Plans I wanted the layout to be similar to that of the article "The Boys from Brazil" that I had deconstructed. However, when creating the layout in indesign this proved difficult. Additionally, with the documentary only being the first 5 minutes of a documentary, I wasn't able to create this layout as only one of the five music fans that would have been in the full documentary is actually in the first 5 minutes created.
Because of this, I decided to base my article off of "The Five Faces of Bowie" and "The Story of Now" articles.
Doing this, I decided to use a simple white background - like both inspiration articles used.
This week I have been editing the re-filmed footage and the footage of Billie's Mam and younger sister. Because of the audio problem with the last filming session, I bought a new tie-clip microphone to avoid any more audio issues. When editing, I found that this microphone was fairly quiet, however I rectified this by simple increasing the volume of the audio.
This week I have re-filmed part of the footage of Billie that I filmed last time. I did this due to the fact that in the external audio, there is a repetitive buzz which makes the speaking hard to hear. Additionally, I filmed with Billie's Mam for her interview sections.
Today I filmed the final scenes for my documentary - including two short interviews with Billie's Mam, Dot, and little sister, Kelsey which will be cut into separate sections to guide through the documentary in order to cast the interview sections away from being just Billie herself. Additionally, I also re-filmed the footage that I filmed prior to this as, when editing, I discovered that the external audio had a continuous buzz on it, and therefore in my rough cut of the documentary, I had to use audio that was from the camera - creating the impression that the audio was filmed in an empty room through the echo it causes. To avoid getting more audio issues, I re-filmed using a new tie clip microphone along with the old one to ensure that if I faced any more issues, I would still have a back-up.
As with the previous filming, I filmed on two cameras in order to get different perspectives on the interviews that are being shot.
As stated previously, the audio of my previously filmed content was bad quality and because of this, for my rough cut, I used the audio straight from the actual camera footage when editing in preparation for my audience feedback. This means that when presenting the rough cut, I will have to tell the audience that the external audio couldn't be used and would need to be re-filmed. I also included alternative camera shots into the interview sections - I edited them into black and white which was a feature that I had seen in the Green Day: Cuartro documentary.
When Billie is talking about the Daily Mail, I included screenshots of article headlines that they wrote to help the audience understand the situation being described.
Today I began editing the footage filmed on the 24/01/15. Because the audio of the footage contained a continuous buzz throughout, I had to use Adobe Audition to try and get rid of the noise.
In audition, I selected part of the audio that contained the buzz and captured the noise print. This allowed me to go into the Noise Reduction and edit the amount of noise reduction put onto the whole clip. Although this did get rid of the buzzing, the overall audio quality was reduced which made me decide to plan to reshoot the parts with the bad audio after the audience feedback from my rough cut was gathered.
This week I have filmed with both Billie and her younger sister at their house. I have also continued editing in order to create my rough cut for my Documentary to present for audience feedback. I have also took some behind the scenes photographs and posted them in a blog post.
I will spend the next two weeks editing my footage.
Today I filmed more of the interview with my friend - because I have filmed on two separate occasions with her, it was important that she dressed the same so that it isn't inconsistent. The interview sections that I filmed include her talking more about why being "Emo" is so controversial, including a real life case of The Daily Mail picking up on a story about a suicide of an "Emo" girl and attacking her favourite band because of it. Additionally, I filmed a section where she talks about concerts, and the different aspects that make up the experience of attending a concert. This part of the interview will be the final section of the interview, leading into a concert video from Frnk Iero and the Cellabration. Because the documentary is only the first 5 minutes of a documentary, this section of concert footage would be the transition from the "Emo" fan into a fan of a different music genre.
This week I have continued filming my Documentary at Billie's house, filming mostly the interview parts. Additionally, I began to create my Production Company Logo, starting by getting feedback from other classmates on the draft logos to see which logo they liked best and what I could do to improve it.
Next week I will continue filming with Billie and her younger sister Kelsey.
After reviewing my feedback for my draft logos, I created my final production company logo.
First I created a circle in the centre of the page. Next I created a round-corner triangle using this tutorial online. After duplicating the triangle, I placed both in the centre of the circle - one bigger than the other to look like a "fast-forward" symbol. Afterwards, I added in the same text as the draft logo, this time altering it so that part of the A and W had an arrow-head on them - I created the arrow-head triangle using the line tool. Then, after getting peer-feedback, I decided that the text would look better slightly overlapping the circumference of the circle. Finally, I added a line below the text, using the polygonal lasso to cut out part of the line so that the sides were tapered. I finally duplicated the line above the text.
Today I began merging the audio and video for the footage filmed on the 10.01.15. I then started to add the footage intro the timeline that consisted of the introduction and first lot of edited interview footage. Alongside this footage, I placed the song Ammonia and Bleach by Emily's Army in the background at a low volume.
Today I began filming the first section of the interview to take place in the documentary. The interview involves Billie introducing herself and introducing the concept of "Emo" and when she started listening to that particular genre of music. Additionally, she discussed how her family reacted when she started listening to rock music, and dressing stereotypical "Emo". This part of the interviews will act as a transition to cut to an interview with her Mam, Dot.
Today I have created two draft logos for my production company using Photoshop. I made sure that the draft logos were simplistic, as doing so allows for improvement through adding new features.
Here are the two Draft Logos:
Next week I will consult people in my class and ask their advice on which logo they prefer, along with their opinion on what may strengthen the aesthetics of the logo.
In order to create a draft of a production company logo, I used Photoshop to experiment with shapes and fonts.
Here is the process of creating my draft company logos:
First I set up my page size to be a square: 10.16/10.16 Centimeters. I also made sure the resolution was 300.
Next I selected the Ellipse under the Shape Tool and created a circle that was in the centre of the page.
Inside the circle I added in the text "AW" in a red font. I decided to use the font "Castellar Regular" Here is the draft of the logo once I completed it:
This week I have created both my Ancillary Task Flat Plans on Microsoft Publisher, using my knowledge and being inspired by Ancillary Tasks that I deconstructed previously to decide what will work best for my documentary.
I also emailed RCA records in order to request permission to use the 1974 song "Rebel Rebel" by David Bowie, from the "Diamond Dogs" album in my documentary. The song, I have decided, will be the song that is used in my introduction. My introduction will be a montage of concert footage clips that I have took with the audio muted and the song "Rebel Rebel" being played instead of the concert audio. The song will be used as a background song whilst a voice over introduces the documentary and the "issues" of teenage music "obsessiveness".
For the introduction to my documentary, I will create a short montage of concert footage from several different concerts that I have attended. The audio of each concert footage clip will be muted, with one singular song playing in the background whilst a voice over will introduce the documentary and the 'issues' surrounding music fans/obsessiveness.
The song in which I have decided to use for the background music is "Rebel Rebel" by David Bowie, from the "Diamond Dogs" album. In order to use this song, I have emailed RCA records to request permission to use the song.
In order to make the song fit the short introduction, I will edit it using a music editing software such as Audacity and shorten it to the desired length.
