EVALUATION

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
When Lawrence and I first received our brief we spoke a lot about the type of song that we wanted to, we also thought about choosing our own song, we spoke a lot about the type of that we wanted to do, and mainly want we wanted to portray in our video, as our brief is to make a music video for a new artist. We first chose to do the song "Girls just wanna have fun" challenging our self to fit the brief to a "T' that Lucy Star is her own person and does not just "follow the crowd" being a stereotypical young women. We both felt that we had a very good idea for a music video, showing that Lucy did not want to be, nor was, one of those girls that you see walking out of the club falling all over the streets with no shoes on, or a materialist person who spends her days shopping, and this was what we wanted to portray in our video, but trying to film this was very difficult. This idea on its own challenged forms or conventions of what a pop star should be.
I think that this idea started to develop onto other pop - punk music artists, for example Avril Lavigne's music videos and music when she first broke into the industry, in some of her music videos and songs she was making fun of the "pop star" and even now, she still does the same, encouraging people to be the person that they want to be instead of following the trend.

I then came up with the idea of doing just a simple performance for our music video, where we would see that Lucy Star does follow societies stereotype. This would be done by first seeing her the way that people think that a popstar should look, then changing herself into who she wants to be.

Whilst thinking about my music video, and thinking of how I could develop my ideas I looked back into a lot of the female artists from the 70's and 80's to see how they dresses and how their make up was, as well looking at other female starts from the present day who are more "bubblegum pop" and "fashion icons" to base the look on that would be used first, for example Cheryl Cole, Britteny Spears, Miley Cyrus etc. As well icons such as Peaches Geldof, Paris Hilton and Katie Price.
I think that this helped me a lot when planning my music video, as it gave me more of a realistic insight into what music videos look like from a performance angle as I looked a wide range from many different artists, both male and female.

The new idea that I had for my music video, where it would be just a performance and you would see the change in Lucy star, where she shows that she would be just who she wanted to be, both challenges and conforms to the conventions of music videos; this it has been used in a way to show what kind of an artist someone is, for example Pink did something similar in her first music video, and has then carried this on to show that she is her own artist. But it challenges the conventions  because of the music; After changing the concept of my music video, I then thought it would fit better if I used the song material girl, I did this because ironic and sarcastic, as Lucy Star is not a materialistic person, and I wanted to portray this in the music video.
I think that this challenges the conventions of a pop/punk star, as the song doesn't fit in with what they would normally sing, or the beat that would be used.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I feel that my digi pac and my video work very well together, they both show what kind of an artist Lucy Star is, that she is her own person, and has her own market that she will appeal to, with both a primary and secondary audience.

This essentially means how well do your video and digipak/poster work together. Remember the purpose of the whole project was to promote a band/artist and their single/album so how well do your products achieve this? Do they present a unified and recogniseable 'image'? Would they appeal to your target audience?

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Though out pitching and developing my music video, I listened and wrote down everything that my class mates and both of my media teachers had said to me. The main thing I learned from my audience feed back that my music video could have used another location, so that it would keep my audience entertained and they would want to keep watching my music video.
Further more, I had a lot of feed back during my editing process from both class mate and teachers, I feel that I took all of this into consideration as my audience is the most important part of music video, an example of this would be that I would need a lot more shots as some are too long, and different camera angles would be needed.
As well as listening to what my feedback was, I also took into consideration what had been said about other peoples videos and what worked well for them, as well as what did not and tried to incorporate so things into my video.

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

Internet - For my research and planning I used the internet a lot, for example youtube and google to look at other artist, music videos and to research into how music has evolved and the different types of music that you can get, there are a lot more genres of music than I thought there would be. I used youtube to download music to put onto my ipod and phone for the filming stages, and taught myself how to use glogster to make my mood board, as this was both easier and I felt more effective than doing a paper mood board.
Whist making my posters and digipacs I also used the internet to find royalty free pictures that I could use for my background, and then edit them so that they would be my own.

Music technology - With regards to the filming process, I used both IPod docking stations and MP3 music of mine and Lawrence's phone to make sure that we got the timing for the lip sinking right, and so that it would be loud enough to hear after filming so that we would know what was being said when it came to editing shots together.

Video editing software - Whilst editing my video, I used both iMovie and Final cut pro; iMovie firstly as this was just for a quick and simple rough cut, that I then moved to Final cut pro to finish editing as I could get finer cuts and better transitions to use. I had to be taught to use Final cut pro, but now after using the two I think that Final cut pro is a lot easier than using iMovie, and I would defiantly prefer to use this in the future.
I also used windows movie maker for making my anamatic as I don't have a Mac at home, and it is quick and simple to use.

Photo editing software - I used two different kinds of photoshop when making my digi pac and my posters, Adobe photoshop CS and Adobe photoshop CS5, I used both of them as  I was first taught to use CS, and CS5 has some different elements to it, and I feel it is easier to use than the older version. I also used scanners to upload my story boards and shooting schedule as it was easier to these on paper, and then upload them via a scanner.

MUSIC VIDEO

Journal

Thursday 17th February
Today I finally finished my music video.
Im not as happy and pleased with it as everyone else is with their music videos as I know I left it to the last minute which meant I didn't have as much time as everyone else to do the improvements that I wanted to.
I know that I could have done a lot better than what I have, but I'm glad that after all this time it is finished.
The only real problem that I have with it is the fact that doesn't really follow as much of a story line as I wanted it to as I couldn't find all of the footage on my mac, which I am really not happy about, and I know that if i hadn't left this so late I would have had more time to find it or even re-shoot the bits that I needed.
I am happy with my music video as it stands, mainly because it is completed, but as well as this because it has a comical side to it, and its not every serious. I think this makes it a lot more enjoyable to watch.

Journal

Tuesday 15th February
I have been working on completing my Digi Pac, as well as improving my posters that I have for Lucy Star.
I have also been looking over the editing that I have been doing, I think that it would work better if some parts are changed - For example I haven't put in the footage of where Lucy Star changes from being what people want her to be, to what she wants to be. This is a key element in my music video as it is establishing who Lucy star is. This is also what teachers have told me as feedback, and were we do not see this happening it could confuse the audience as they have not seen her change.
Furthermore there are some shots where we see both styles of Lucy, this does not work as she has left the pink Lucy behind her, and the video would work better if these sections are not here because with them in there is no continuity.
I think that when all of the editing has been done, it would be good to star playing with with transitions and effects that can be added onto the video for example split screens and changing the colour of some of the shots. This would work well and I think that it would had some excitement to the video as I only have two locations and two/three costume changes within the video. I have already started looking at different transitions and have put some in at the beginning of the video, this defiantly makes a difference when watching the music video, so I will defiantly be adding some more of these throughout the video.

Final Digi Pac

This is my final Digi Pac :) 

I moved the picture of Lucy Star to the left, and changed the angle of her name on the front, this looks a lot better than how it originally did when everything was centered. I thought about changing the way the stars feel on the two CD backgrounds, but after I realized that it would be seen upside down, I decided that it would look better the way that it was. 

I've also put both spines in, as well as the DVD logo, as the Digi Pac contains a Bonus disc of behind the scenes footage of Lucy Stars first video.  

Digi Pac 3

I have been working on making a new and FINAL digi pac, as I keep changing my idea or I'm just not happy with the work that I have done.
This is the Digi Pac - my third and final Digi Pac - that I have done, and how I did it.

 This is how I first started creating my digi pac, focusing on using the colours purple and green as I though that this would work better than using pink and white. I was worried that with a dark purple background, the Lucy Star photos that I would be using wouldn't stand out well enough on their own. As well as this I thought that it was a bit too plain and boring and the picture that I used on the first square as a back ground doesn't work well with both the digi pac theme and the colours. 

With the ear phones on the top right hand cover I changed the colour from the original red and black to green as it would work better with the colour scheme that I had chosen, as well as this I faded the picture out as this looked better than just having a big block colour of green, and you can see the stars shinning through behind. 

I then played around a bit more with ideas and the pictures that I had from royalty free sights and came up with this:

I decided that I would move the picture that I had in the top right hand corner to the bottom left, as well as changing the font and the colour of the writing that I had so that it would both stand out more and suit the theme better, as well as keeping it simple, as this can have a bigger impact than having lots of different styles of font. I also wanted to keep the same background on the top right hand cover, as keeping it white would not look as good as it would if they had the same background.  

I then added on pictures of Lucy star and started to play around with the contrast of the back ground pictures and the pictures of Lucy Star: 

After playing around with the contrast of the purple background, I feel that this works better and stand out more as Lucy Star is wearing black and it also shows what sort of artist that she is, she isn't a dull bland person, she is lively and I feel that these colours work better than it would have done if i had just left them as they originally were. 

I also put a picture of Lucy Star sitting down holding a poster that says "Be who you want to be, not what society says you should be" behind the text and faded this out so that you can still see the text and the signs behind, but you can still faintly see what she holding. 

I think that having Lucy Star and her name centered in the middle of the front cover is too original and this should be changed and moved around to see what works better. 

Poster 2