LH: Evaluation

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

Question 2 – “How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?”

Question 3 – “What have you learned from your audience feedback?”

Question 4 – “How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?”

We used Blogger.com as a collaborative e-portfolio in our group throughout the planning, construction and evaluation. It allowed us to upload individual tasks, as well as contribute to group tasks from different computers, making teamwork very effective, shown through the use of labelling each specific post uploaded with either initials if a solo piece or with group. Blogger also allows us to upload many forms of media from a podcast to a prezi, allowing us to easily access many forms of multimedia from one central web location. This shows strong levels of ICT usage, as it enabled us to work over many different platforms, while incorporating it all into one area i.e. the blog. The blogposts would go in chronological order giving an organised structure which was easy to use, and allowed us to see how our work developed over time, and with the navigation system easily refer back to previous ideas.

To carry out audience research we used Survey Monkey which is a prime example of Web2.0 as data can be sent and received via the internet. It worked well as a method gain information from a sample of the target audience of this piece of media. We were able to send it to specific contacts who are more likely to look in depth, as well as this we could send it to people with less experience who more watch for the visceral effect. To carry out this process we sent via the website Survey Monkey to a selection of people willing to take part, they responded with results based around questions about our song and video. From this we could gain an understanding of what would go down well with the audience, also allowing opinions to be given to make sure we create the best work possible. Many of the questions we asked were about the genre and the metanarrative of Loyle Carner giving a perspective of him overall. Responses allowed us to make changes with our original ideas, and thoroughly adapted our media work to what it is today. The different types of questions allowed us to aim to gage a broad range of opinions from respondents. From Stuart Hall's research into encoding and decoding of texts one can notice that people from different experiences can interpret our text in different ways, as in not taking the preferred reading, and taking a negotiated or oppositional path. The internet also worked well as a form of secondary research, especially when looking into other artists work, who have a similar star image to that of Loyle Carner e.g. Roots Manuva. This is an example of Web 2.0 as it shows interaction between the audience and us as the producers to be taking place over the internet. We created user-generated content, by setting up a private questionnaire for viewers of our choice on Surveymonkey.com which could be interpreted as the usage of social media, as there is a clear interaction between us and the audience over the internet where we gained responses. We have also used web2.0 in many other ways, for example we can see the sharing of our rough cut onto the platform of YouTube, this shows the usage of Social Media as we are sharing our video onto a huge platform where anyone can access our material and give their opinion on our piece of media. 

Using Davinci Resolve, we constructed an animatic, this is where we show images drawn out as storyboards and place them in chronological order upon the timeline in time with the music. It works well for us as a planning method because it gives a rough outline of what goes where when filming and how long each shot should be. Allowing us go into the filming process with more confidence and high levels of shot decisions already made. At a point it seemed we would not have enough shots for the song, but when incorporating spontaneous shots we were able to with more ease. When doing this we put the song in the audio timeline, this allowed us to practice with cutting on the beat allowing us to experiment with this process. In general it was an easy process, the only thing to hold us back was the on the spot creativity which was due to only going on one recce to the location. In hindsight returning for a thorough recce to the graveyard location would have allowed to us to find the animatic process more easy.

One problem we faced on the first filming session on the train and train station, was permission. Which was overcome by speaking to the workers who gave us permission to shoot on certain carriages. One problem with the lip-syncing shoot was the difficulty of timing the rap alongside the piece of music, which was a problem at the beginning except throughout Oli gained confidence and we came out with a good number of shots. In our second lip-syncing shoot we really noticed major improvement, after going over the whole song in 3 separate locations and in close to one take each, allowing us to pick and choose the best bits. At the beginning of this coursework we also had the issue to having to adapt to using new editing software, and there were also a few issues with our footage when it came to uploading onto the timeline, but with time and methods of changing our footage linked with the computer's graphics card we were then able to continue with the editing process, which did set us back when it came to time management. 

To edit the video we used Davinci Resolve which has enabled us to edit particularly effectively, minus a couple of technical issues at the commencement of this project. The soundwaves on the songs timeline are very useful to use when editing as it allows all cuts and effects to be put in perfectly in time with the song. Another method we have used to produce our work has been the layering of shots, this is done my placing two shots at the same time on the timeline and altering the opacity in order to blur the images together. In our montage sequence we had to use the cutting tool which meant we could cut the shot and mover onto the next relatively easily and it could be reciprocated with more ease, also it allowed us synchronize the visuals alongside the audio and create a sense of synaesthesia. Davinci Resolve offers a huge selection of grading options that we used in order to gain a retro effect on some of the shots, this can be shown on the grainy shots looking over the photo montage sequence. As well as this, the transition options it supplies are very strong allowing us to access the disjunctive editing style that we were going for. Adobe After effects was also used in shots where he looks through the book of his memories, the camera is edited to move between photos smoothly.

Photoshop was the most suitable platform for us to edit the printwork, as it allowed us to use templates giving us a professional CD case, this allowed us to envision exactly how the case would look. As well as this we could experiment with different editing methods, we liked the layering of photos, giving a rustic/old school feel, correlating with Loyle Carner's metanarrative.

When shooting we used HD cameras of the DSLR range. These allowed us to film in particularly high quality. It also meant that we could use it with different pieces of camera equipment, for example it can attach to a jib to get smooth professional shots. Though we had not used these cameras to much of an extent prior to this, meaning at the beginning it took a bit longer to get used to the equipment. We are most pleased with the montage of Oli sitting in front of the church because it works very effectively on the track, taking multiple different shots with Oli sitting in different places edited together on the beat of the song. The cameras allow the focus to be changed it will giving us opportunities for pull focus shots, this works well with our track as it gives a sort of ambient feel especially when the focus is soft and slightly blurred. The use of the jib is also very useful, giving slow, smooth movements that are noticeable allowing camera movement, we used this is the graveyard scene to get the slow smooth movement linking closely to that of a graveyard.