Our evaluation

After our lesson on Tuesday me and Paige stayed to finish our evaluation. We only needed to finish putting in some images of our production which relate to what we are talking about. We managed to find as many relevent pictures, such as pictures of Maya putting on lipstick when we talk about changing the normal conventions of a music video. However, we have had to leave some spaces as we didnt have appropriate pictures for what we was talking about at times.  

Magazine advert final

For the final draft of our magazine advert we decided to change the font of our band name to match the one on the digipack, we also added our website so our fans can find out more about the band and our 'cupcake productions' logo to make the advert look more authentic.

Digi-pack final

For the final of our digipack we decided to keep to the colour theme of pink, black and grey, as we thought it looked professional but still girly. The first four is the for the front of the digipack and then the rest of the booklet introducing fans to the band members individually. Then the last is for the back of the digipack where it gives the name of our songs, our website, our 'cupcake production' logo and barcode to make it look more authentic. I am really happy with how the digipack looks as it looks professional and I really like the front image of us sat on the line.

Week beginning 16th Apr

Now we have returned after easter we need to complete our evaluation as quick as possible! Yesterday during our lesson we finally managed to upload our footage onto the computer by using a different camera. We then begun editing it and putting in images that relate to what we are saying from our production.

We didnt quite manage to finish it but we plan to stay after the lesson to complete it on Thursday.

Week beginning 26th March

For the last part of our coursework we have to evaluate our production and produce it in a creative way. Mrs showed us examples of how this can be done in class and for ours we decided to make it into a short video with text, our voice overs and showing relevant parts of our production.

The evaluation questions we had to answer were:
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We first wrote down the answers to these questions which we all discussed and then we each filmed each other answering the questions. We then tried to upload our footage onto the computer but it wasnt working on any of the computers! Because we were doing this out of lesson we couldnt find mrs to help us so we had to email her letting her know that we would have to finish our evaluation project after easter, annoying!

Evaluation questions

For one of our evaluation questions we had to ask our target audience some questions about our production to find out there feedback. We all had to ask 3 people each some questions, the questions I asked were:Do you think the theme and idea of the video is clear?
Do you think the production, digipack and magazine advert would appeal to our target audience of teenage to adult females? Why?
If not, what could we do to make it more appealing?

For the first question the responses were:
'Yes, I think it says how beauty is on the inside'
'Yes, I think it is about a girl wanting to grow up too quickly'
'Yes, it is about beauty and image'

For the second question the responses were:
'Yes, because you look nice and have outfit changes which could interest young girls'
'Yes, because it focuses on an idea that affects young girls and could make them feel better'
'Yes, because it is about beauty and image'

For the third question there were no responses because everyone said yes to the one before.

Final cut of production

Week beginning 5th March

During our production lesson yesterday knowing our production is finished, we knew we had to focus on our ancillary tasks. We decided to retake our pictures for our digipack as we didnt think they were very good. We decided to stick to the colour theme of black and white with what we were wearing to keep it simple. We took the pictures in front of our white background and took some simple ones of us smiling and some on a chair so we could edit the chair out and then make us look like we was sitting on the letters of 'SugarDolls' like our original idea. After this, Paige then began to edit them, we ony had time to edit the ones of us sitting down, so she was going to carry editing them at home and then send me and gabby them so we can create our ancillary tasks to show on Thursday.

Feedback from our 3rd cut of production

We had to show our third cut of our production today to recieve feedback from the class and our teacher on how we can make some final improvements:



After showing our 3rd cut of our production we recieved feedback from Mrs Allison and the rest of our class. Our feedback sheet above shows that our production is mainly in the proficient section but with some parts being excellent and still some in basic.

To improve our production further the things we need to do are:

1.  Although we have reshot the shoe scene several times, Mrs still doesnt think it is working. However, she said it is up to us if we want to leave it in or try something else because she personally doesnt like it.
2. At the end of the song, on the last line that Paige sings we cut her off to early before she says the last word of the sentence so we have to make her bit longer so she sings the whole line.
3. On the 2nd lot of masks we don't think the cross dissolve transition between the masks looks good and we want to change it so they are like the first lot of masks with us 3, with dip to black in between each person. 

Ancillary tasks draft 1

For our magazine advert we decided to use the first image that I took as we thought it stood out more and on the black and white one you can't see her pink lipstick and we thought this was an important part of it.
Our first draft of the advert is:

We are planning on changing the font at the top to match our font on the front of the digipack:

We also plan to add our production company logo and name and maybe some more information about the band. However we did intentionally keep the poster simple to attract attention as I think the main image of Maya says alot and we wanted it to be dramatic and eye catching.

For our digipack, we again wanted to keep this simple. We decided to keep to a colour theme of black, pink and white. We had a problem with editing the pictures for on the digipack so we put the pictures on as how they are for now to give an idea of what it would look like. These are the images:

We aren't sure whether we are going to keep these or take some more as none of us particularly like them, my hair is now back blonde which would be better as it matches to the music video and we also need to take a picture of all three of us together.

Week beginning 20th Feb

Baring in mind we had to show our third cut of our production and our first draft of our ancillary tasks in Thursdays lesson we knew this week we had to check over our production and begin to put together our digipack and magazine advert. Because Paige was in charge of editing the pictures and it is quite a big job me and Gabby were going to put together the ancillary tasks and do the writing and layout together. For our poster we wasn't sure what to use as the main background image, as although we had planned to use us 3 we wanted to be more original, so me and Gabby come up with the idea of using my little sister, who is also in our music video, on the advert. We thought we could make her up with lots of make up to make her look fake so it looks ugly, to keep with the theme that beauty is within and you don't need to look fake etc.
These are some of the images that I took of Maya to use as our main advert image:

Research on digipack

Baring in mind we have to begin creating our digipack over the next couple of days I decided to do some research on some famous digipacks. I decided to look at Sugababes as it is a girl group and attracts a similar target audience to what we are focusing on. I noticed on this particular one it hasnt used a lot of colour and is quite plain. This digipack also contains a booklet which we also want to include. Their booklet includes song lyrics, a large picture of each of the band members and their name. They also use a clear colour scheme of black and white all the way through. Which is similar to what we want to create but make it more colourful and girly by using bright colours.



Week beginning 6th Feb

During our production lesson this week we began our ancillary tasks. For both our digipack and advert we are planning on including pictures of all the band members. We all wore similar coloured clothes nude/pinky clothes so we all matched and looked stylish. We took pictures of each of us sat and stood in front of the green screen so then the background would be easy to change to what we wanted. We took pictures of us sat on tables and chairs as Paige said she can edit them out on photoshop and then use them to make us look like we're sat on some of the letters of 'Sugardolls' for on the front of our digipack. We then uploaded them to the computer and Paige began to edit the pictures. She is planning on carrying on editing the pictures over the next couple of days so we can get together next week and create our ancilliary tasks.

Week beginning 30th Jan

During our Tuesday production lesson yesterday we carried on planning for our anciliary tasks, the digipack and magazine advert.

The plan for our digipack is as follows:

On the front cover of our digipack we were planning to have white background with the name of our band on in black with us 3 small sat on some of the letters. Something like this:

We are also planning on having a booklet in our digipack, which will include a large picture of each of the individual band members, a quote from each of us, a page with our signitaures on and a picture of all three of us together on the back page.

On the back of our CD cover we are going to write the song titles and include a production label name and a barcode to make it look authentic.

Then the two ideas we had for our magazine adverts are:

and:

After doing this planning we also did some more editing on our production. This is how our timeline is looking now, as you can see we are nearly finished! All that is left to edit it is the new masks filmings we reshot.

Week beginning 16th Jan

During our production lesson on Tuesday we had to get our editing done. We editied all our footage from last weeks refilming of the masks and also editied the refilmed shots that I did with Maya at home. All of the mask shots were a big improvement on our last ones as we made sure we positioned the shots well so everyone was in the same place so it looked like it flowed better. We also put the mask on a wooden stick which made the shot look a lot tidier as you couldnt see the persons hands, which also meant the mask was held in the same position without being able to see any hands holding the mask interferring. The shots of Maya also worked better as we replaced the shot of me and Maya walking that wasnt working very well:

More examples of music magazine adverts

These are more examples of some music magazine adverts, they are both quite simple and only have limited amount of content. But they both include the name of the artist, the name of the song/CD and a picture of the CD cover. Which gives us an idea of what we should include!

Week beginning 9th Jan

Today we began by refilming our mask shots. We improved these shots compared to the original ones by lighting the shot, putting the mask on a stick so you cant see peoples hands, and keeping to a timing of when to raise and put down the mask so all the shots will be similar. We used lots of different students for this and put them in front of a large black bit of card to keep the background the same, as this would emphasise the change in people.
After we had done this, we carried on planning our ancillary tasks. We were researching examples of magazine adverts for songs. Some of the ones we found are:

We decided to look at all these as these are all song advertisements for girlbands. So we can use them for inspiration and to get ideas from. We notice that they are all quite simple as they all just have the name of the band, the song name and a picture of all the band members.

Week beginning 2nd Jan

During our Thursday lesson we began to plan our ancillary tasks. We decided first we needed to come up with a name for our band, we decided on 'Sugardolls' as although it isnt very original, we thought it sounded girly and suited our image.
After discussing our ideas we decided we really liked Paiges idea for our CD digipack. She thought that we could have our name 'Sugardolls' on the front cover in a big font with us then small sat on some of the letters. She has designed this to show roughly what it would look like.

We also thought that in the digipack we would want to include a booklet about our band, this will contain images of the band together and individual shots, and quotes and information about the members.

Planning the Ancillary Tasks

Our first ancillary task we are planning on doing is:

a magazine advertisment for the digipack (CD/DVD package)

For photgraphic images: One idea I thought of was having a large picture of the CD we are releasing and then us 3, the band members, surrounding the CD looking as if the CD is actually there and really big. For example one of us could be leaning on it or lying on top of it to make it the main thing of the advertisment. This will hopefully make it stand out to make more people take notice of it. I would make the ad very bright and colourful to make it stand out and catch peoples eyes but I also think we should keep to the colour theme of the CD we decide on to make it all link together. For mise en scene I think we should all be wearing quite stylish clothes to appeal to our target audience.

Typography and text: I think we should use quite a girly font but make sure its clear so people can read it easily like 'Comic Sans MS'. It should also be quite big so it catches peoples eye and they can easily read it. I think our advert should contain, the name of the CD, the name of our band, reviews of the CD from celebrities and magazines which would appeal to our target audience and information on the CD e.g. release date.

Layout decisions: I think the balance of image and text should be quite equal, but I think the images should be in the middle of the page and the text should be at the top and bottom. As then the reader will know the CD is the main idea of the advert as it is right in the middle.

Genre codes and indicators of audience targeting: I think the clothes we will wear in the advert will be an indicator of audience targeting as I think we should wear stylish clothes which will appeal to teenage girls. I also think the colour scheme of our advert will be an indicator as I think we should try and use bright colours which will appeal to the teen groups we are aiming at.

The second ancillary task we are doing is:

a cover for its release as part of a digipack

For photographic images: On the cover of our CD I think we should have a shot of Maya from our music video on the front cover to attract peoples attention and to make them wonder what the song is about. Some examples of CDs where the artists arent on the front of their CD are:

I think we need to use quite a powerful shot of Maya and a close up to make it stand out. I think then throughout the digipack we should have single and a group image of the band members to promote ourselves.

Typography and text: On the front cover of our CD I think we should only have the title of the CD and the name of the band to make it simple and clean cut. I think the font needs to be clear and big to make it stand out and be noticeable.

Layout decisions: I think that the balance of image and text in the digipack should be mainly images as people won't buy the CD to read but will be to listen to it so I think we should include images that the people can quickly look at and get an idea of the type of band we are instead of having to read lots. But I think it could be a good idea to include information about each of the band members which fans could be interested in.

Genre codes and indicators of audience: Again, I think the clothes that the audience sees us wearing in the images will be an indicator as it will attract people that like the same sort of stylish clothes as us.

2nd cut of our production

I have tried uploading the video several times but it keeps saying error while uploading. I managed to get this on but don't think its working! Will keep trying, very annoying!

Week beginning 2nd Jan

Today I did some filming with my little sister as once we had recieved the feedback on our 2nd draft we knew we needed to refilm some of the shots shes in.

I first refilmed the shot where Maya is reading. Before she was reading a school book but we decided to change it to be a fashion magazine to fit more in with the theme we were trying to potray. This shot was hard to film again as we start zoomed in on Mayas eye and then zoom out to see her reading, but it is hard to keep the camera steady and in focus and to make sure the timing is right when doing this.

We also agreed that the shot of Maya walking in high heels then she shuts the door and you see me walking in heels wasnt working. So I decided to put Maya in some bigger heels so you can clearly see the shoes are too big for her, put her in a dress that is too big for her so she has to hitch it up when she walks and also some socks with teddys on, all to symbolise how young she really is. Also instead of using the door for the swap over I thought that Maya could walk up to her wardrobe and open it to look as if shes looking for something and then I would walk out to show the difference.

I also had an idea to film Maya in the mirror while she is putting on bright pink lipstick, very badly! Also to suggest how young she is. I don't know how well it will work but I'll see what the girls think and see if there is a place where we could put it!