Evaluation.

1. Evaluation. Sarah Hammond

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?  For our media production, Heidi and I created a music video. We created the music video in the form of a narrative; this style is usually a convention of a music video. We adapted the mis-en-scene, this being props, costume, and all around scenes, to demonstrate the story we were trying to portray. We did not challenge the forms and conventions as we used the norm, what people expect, we did this because we wanted people to understand and not confuse people, and we thought it could be a risk if we challenged them to much. We did not use strange, abnormal mis-en-scene as we wanted our story to portray as real life. I think this is what most music videos do, and therefore why they are similar. We did this by firstly wanting the subject in our media production to be reality, something that could or does happen. Then we thought of different shots/effects/editing that we could manipulate to make our media production or own take on a music video.

3. We believe that our media production has done this, the quality, ideas and whole product is of a standard of a real media production. Although we may not have challenged, we believe that we may have developed and adapted the forms and conventions to our own style and originality. We wanted our media production to be different and original, we wanted to follow the forms and conventions but in our own way, and how we interpret them. We did this by firstly wanting the subject in our media production to be reality, something that could or does happen. Then we thought of different shots/effects/editing that we could manipulate to make our media production or own take on a music video. We believe that our media production has done this, the quality, ideas and whole product is of a standard of a real media product.

4. How effective is the combination of your main product and auxiliary text? Heidi and I both think the combination of our media production and auxiliary text has been very effective and successful. We choose to do an album cover and a magazine advertisement. Firstly we decided to research into what a ‘digi-pak’ was, we wanted to do this, so that we could do our very best on our auxiliary text and understand the reasoning behind them. Our two auxiliary text flow every well together. To make sure they promoted one and other, we stuck to a similar colour scheme and featured the same image of spotlights on both products. This acted as a the bands ‘image logo’, something that the audience would subconsciously recognise and relate the two together. It almost acted like their trade mark. We also created a magazine article, this was in the form of an interview of the band. We thought this would be a good idea, and it would promote the package even more.

5. What have you learned from your audience feedback? We both think that the audience feedback is extremely important. In media the audience is the power holder, the audience decides what they want and the media provides. Therefore this is what we did. We both learned the importance of the audience opinions. We were influenced by Edward de Bono and his PMI (plus points, minus points and most interesting aspects). I found that when I was using this technique to evaluate others it was very productive, but hard to draw negative points, as we all know the hard work and time that have gone into the media productions; therefore, maybe it would be more reliable from people who have not created media productions. This was our feed back:

6. Plus points: • Brilliantly filmed • Realistic • Smooth transitions • Good use of black and white • Jump editing • Timing fits well with song • Good story line • Editing of chair scene • Played on emotions • We are extremely happy with the positive feed back; most of the plus points are the things that we intended to be noticed and what we liked ourselves. We were particular happy with these comments,‘ realistic’, ‘Good story line’, ‘played on emotions’ and the ‘good editing of chair scene’ These were the elements that we work hard on, for people to understand, and take it seriously, these comments prove that they did. Most of these plus points were repeated several times, this is evidence that the feedback above is reliable.

7. Minus points: • The song • Could have been longer • Wanted to see more • Lighting issues • Cheesy wine scene • To sad • Change between dream and reality • Poor acting • Some clips stayed on screen to long • Looking at the minus points we think some are constructive criticism and others are not really relevant. Things like ‘could have been longer’, ‘lighting issues’, ‘the change between dream and reality’ and ‘some clips stayed on screen to long’ we took on board, and if we had the chance to re-create our production, we would take these things into consideration. Although things such as ‘cheesy wine scene’, ‘to sad’ and ‘poor acting’ were irrelevant to our film making process as we strongly believe that they were good points, and people may have misunderstood what they were evaluating.

8. Most interesting points: • Time lapse • Use of black & white • Ending with the fire • Related to it • Emotional • Close up on letter • Chair scene • Looking back in time about the relationship • Use of camera angles & shots • Film relating to song • Continuity & editing • Memories • Good theme • Flashbacks

9. The feedbacks for the most interesting points are very reassuring as they are the elements of the film that we enjoyed the most and put lots of work into. Our most interesting points would probably be the ‘chair scene’ the ‘memories scene’ and the ‘emotional elements’ things that all came up regularly. This is has made me and Heidi very proud of our production, and that the audience have picked up on what we wanted them to. We would now be confident that if we re-created our media production, we would be confident in incorporating the feedback, to improve it. I would defiantly use Edward de Bono’s approach to audience feedback again. It gave people the opportunity to have several opinions, and elaborate on them. Because the audience had a lot more freedom with their comments, that also benefited us, when evaluating the feedback, as it was diverse and detailed.

10. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? New media has given us as individuals so many creative opportunities. It is amazing to think that we have the technology to create productions of any kind and of any liking; we get to put our ideas into place. New media also means we have access to information; we have access to different programs that mean we can present our evaluation in a variety of original ways. The speed and information has been an essential when doing our research throughout our production, this being from watching music videos on the internet for analysis purposes, too accessing information about magazine articles on bands. New media has helped us gain information not only from the internet but feed back from our audiences via the internet, For example survey monkey has aloud us too, get the feed back we need too create our production. This was fast, reliable and extremely helpful.