Evaluation Question/ Answers

1)In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product mainly uses and develops forms and conventions of real media products. It does not really challenge any forms or conventions.

My media product follows similar themes that are in other music videos. My music video follows the theme of alternative rock. The band members in m music video wear clothing that is similar to what the typical alternative rock bands wear. The typical clothing is quite casual, mainly being jeans and a t-shirts, an example of this is shown on Prezi on my blog. The band members in my music video wear this type of clothing, but make it more original in the way they wear it, to create their own image and not some other bands. In this context my media product uses and develops forms and conventions of real media products.
My music video also uses the theme in the original music video of Jimmy Eat World of having the odd person out, and made them to be stuck in ‘the middle’. We have shown this by filming the scene at a school, having all kids in their uniforms and the girl in the middle wearing hers differently, with the blue tights. In the original video of jimmy eat world everyone was in their underwear and the person in the middle was fully clothed.
Most music videos have something that the audience can relate to. Our music video also does the same. We have used the main character, which is the girl in the music video look the typical age as our audience and used her to tell the story of the music video. Our music video shows the story of the difficulty a person faces of being stuck in the middle, but then later manages to solve it. The music video tries to send out the message saying ‘don’t give up, and everything will be just fine’.

Other ways in which my media product uses and develops forms and conventions, is by following the theme of having a storyline to the music video, like most alternative rock bands do. I have realised this theme of alternative rock bands by looking at different alternative rock music videos. Most of Jimmy Eat world’s music video has a story to it. My group members and I have used this method as we thought this was a good idea, as it puts an image to the lyrics, and shows people what the lyrics are trying to say.

My music video also has similar text placement in the music video like other alternative rock. The original video of The Middle by jimmy eat world has the text placement on the left hand corner. My group members and I have also done the same.

My magazine advert and album cover have a common link between them, so that it is easy for audience to recognise the product. My magazine advert and album cover follow a colour scheme and has the house style of arrows, colour and fonts. Other products also have a similar theme between them.

If I were to put my magazine advert on any type of magazine, it would most probably be NME as that is more of typical place to publish it, as most alternative rock audience view things like NME. My target audience are people who read things like NME magazine. I would also advertise my advert online to get the attention of my target audience who spend a lot of their time inline. My product and magazine advert would be on things like iTunes. I would also advertise in stores like HMV to get the attention of my target audience in all ways, and also to get other audiences to listen to the music.
This is also a way my media product uses and develops forms and conventions of real media products, as the distribution method is also of the typical genre of alternative rock.


2) How effective is the combination of your media product and the ancillary tasks?

There is a common link between my album cover, magazine advert and music video.

My album cover has the main character of the music video to emphasize individuality and to show a common link between the music video. The album cover also has arrows to emphasize this individuality and the title ‘THE MiDDLE’. The arrows also are a part of the house style for my ancillary task. I have used the same font throughout my magazine advert and album cover, as it is a part of my house style. As part of my house style I have also kept to a colour scheme. I have kept the arrows on my magazine advert and the album cover the same. I have also kept some of the colours of the text the same. For the background colour rather then a black and red background like my album cover, I have used the same colour as the blue tights of the main character in the music video so that everything else stands out more.
I have put my album cover on my magazine advert so that it is easier to show people what to buy. I have also put images of the band on the magazine advert to show who this group are, and to advertise them. The advert is there to sell the artist, and in order to do that, images of them were required. The images gave a picture to the name and the audience. The band image and the album cover on the magazine advert kept a link to the music video, as it was using characters from the music video. For the title of the album and the band name I have kept the ‘I’ in the word middle and Jimmy in lower case to show individuality.
From my audience feedback, people have said that the combination of my media product and ancillary task was effective.

In conclusion I believe that the combination of my media product and ancillary task was effective.


3) What have you learned from audience feedback?

I made a survey in order to get audience feedback showing them my ancillary task and the music video. I have received constructive criticism from my audience, who are people mainly at the age of 16-18 years. I have asked people of this age group as they were my target audience. We have used the main character of the story in the music video to link to the audience, as she is of the same age group as our audience, and the audience could relate to it.

The audience feedback has helped me to realise what I have done well for my media product and ancillary task, and what I could have done better.
For my music video, the positive comments I have received were that, the camera angles were good and still. People have said that the lip syncing was very good as it was on time. They have said that the music video flowed well with the music and the shots weren’t to long.

The comments I have received for the music video on the things that my group members and I could have done better were mainly about the instruments not being played on time. However we were aware of this but could not do much about it. The biggest problem was the drummer, as she could not play the drums properly and so didn’t really know what she was doing. Due to the lack of time we could not re-shoot the band shots, and so had to make do.

I have had my entire class who is doing this project also to look at my music video and they have also had similar comments. They’re comments were important as they knew what things to look out for when making these comments.

For my album cover I have received good comments. People did not say much about the album cover so I have assumed that it was good.

For the magazine advert I have received an overall of good comments. However there were comments that made me realise the things that I could have improved on. One comment was that the band picture on my magazine advert looked squashed vertically, but that was because of the position that the band members were sitting in. another comment was that the blue background for the magazine advert was a bit dull, but it had kept to my colour scheme.

Overall people have thought that my music video and the ancillary task were good, and people had given my product an 8/9 out of 10. However there things that were a bit lacking that I could have improved on and done better.
The feedback has helped me be to be more aware of this and in the future I will try to be more alert.


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

For the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages I have used different media technologies.

I have used Blogger.com in order to keep a record of everything I have done during the process of research, planning construction and evaluation stages.

I have used media technologies such as YouTube, Google and Wikipedia to research and plan my music video. Using YouTube I have looked at other alternative rock music videos to find a common theme between them. Most alternative rock bands like Jimmy Eat World have a storyline to their music videos, and my group members and I have also done the same.
For the planning process my group members and I have visited lyrics websites, and used the lyrics to create a story for the music video. We also used the lyrics to find to create a plot of where we would have the band shots and the story shots. The lyrics have helped us to create a story board, so that we would know what to do when it came down to filming it.

For the construction part of the media product I have used media technologies such as the camera to take pictures for my album cover and magazine advert. I have used Adobe Photoshop Elements for my Ancillary task to create my album cover and magazine advert for the music video. Using adobe Photoshop elements, I have edited the images I have taken with the camera and altered the size in order to fit the size of the CD cover and magazine advert. I used a video camera for the filming process of the music video. I have used imovie HD in order to edit the shots me and my group members have taken with the video camera and to produce the music video.

Using Prezi I have created the evaluation of my media product. I used YouTube to post up my music video on my blog and on Prezi.com. I have also used it to get audience feedback of my music video. However this was not very successful.
I also used Facebook to get some audience feedback for my music video, album cover and magazine advert; however it wasn't very successful either, so I used Microsoft Word in order to create surveys. I’ve had to individually ask people in order to get audience feedback.

This is how I have used media technologies in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages.

Prezi- Presentation

This is my individual evaluation of my media product presented as a presentation on prezi.com. i have done an individual prezi because my group thought that it would be a easier to show our individual work this way. I have attempted to answer all four evaluation questions set. I will be writing up my full answers soon.

A2 Media Evaluation on Prezi

My group members and I have also done a group presentation using prezi in order to present it to my media class. Below is our group presentation.

Our Media evaluation on Prezi

I had been off sick when this presentation had started, but i later caught up with Luis and added my parts to this group evaluation, and later as the whole group finished the presentation off.

Evaluation Questions

Yesterday we were given the evaluation questions that we will be required to answer for our production work. For the next couple of weeks we will be evaluating our work by answering the following questions:

1) In what ways does your media product develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2) How effective is the combination of your media product and the ancillary tasks?

3) What have you learned from audience feedback?

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

We have been given the choice of answering these questions in a powerpoint presentation or as a prezi on www.prezi.com

My group members and I have decided to do our evaluation on prezi.com

Me and charlotte have planned out on how we will be answering the four questions during class. Due to luis being on a school trip, he could not participate in this, and has to catch up when he comes back.



The above image is Charlotte's and my evaluation plan. The pink writing is my work, and th eorange is charlotte's. On some of the questions we kept to one colour as we both had the same ideas.

Our Music Video

Below is our music video completed.



I feel that our music video has turned out very well in terms of its editing, camera angles and lip singing. The shots fitted and flowed well with the music. The video wasn't boring and kept people interested till the end. There was a few problems with the band shots, as the Drummer could not play the Drums and wasn't very in sync with the music, however this is a problem that we could not change but are aware of. If we had more time we would have re-taken these shots, but due to the lack of time we have in our hands we would not have been able to organize and re-film these parts, and edit it. Also we have had to finish all our production work a week before as Luis has had to go on school trip, and we would have had missed the deadline by the time he comes back. We are very happy with our overall work with the music video, and in the future we will have to be aware of these minor problems.

Story Board

Below is the story board we have made inorder to make our music video. We have made our story board in two parts. One part is for all the band shots that we would take and the other is for all the Story line shots that we would take. We have done this so that it would be easier for us to keep track of what we are doing while we filmed and edited.

Story line shots- Story Board






















Band Sots- Story Board













We have now completed all or filming and editing. We have used our story boards during the process of filming and editing. Editing the music video was quite stressful as the iMovie maker kept on breaking down on us. Thankfully none of our data was lost during the editing process as we had saved after every section of editing. We had to re-do some of our filming as some shots did not turn out as well as we had wanted to. We had to change the location, and retake some of our band shots many times because of problems. However because we were ahead of time, we had time to solve these problems and finish our music video. We have managed our time very well and are pleased with the work we have done. I will be uploading our music video onto the blog soon.

Magazine Advert

I have now completed my magazine advert. The Magazine advert took me a lot more time to create as the image I used was more difficult to edit and also because it took me a lot more time deciding on the colours for the magazine advert and how the text should be placed. My magazine advert and my album cover needed some similarities, and also I needed to keep my album cover and magazine advert similar to the rest of my group members. Charlotte, Luis and I decided that the common theme in our album cover and the magazine advert should be the arrows and the font of the text which is Myriad pro. I have kept the colours for my magazine advert similar to my album cover. I have used a blue background colour for my advert, which is the same colour as Charlottes Tights on the album cover. I have used The same colour on the arrows for my album cover and Magazine advert. The Font on my advert is the same as the one on my album cover as well as some of the colour of the text.
To create my magazine advert i have used Photo Shop elements and created my Magazine advert the same way I have created the Album cover.
Below is my magazine advert.

Editing Image for the Album cover

For my album cover i have chosen the the picture below.



I have used Adobe Photoshop Elements to to edit this image. Below are print screens of the process of how i went about editing it.

I have used the magic wand tool to select all the unwanted areas of the picture and erased it.


I then zoomed into the specific areas of the picture, like the one above and erased all the unwanted details.


here again i zoomed into the image in order to erase all the unwanted areas and make the image more defined.



After editing the image this is how it looked. After this i took the picture and put it into the correct album cover size, which was 14cm (width) by 12.5 cm (height). I then added background colour to the image and added the text for the album cover. Then i added the arrows for the album cover as it is part of our house style. I have followed my draft drawing of the album cover to make the final one.



Above is my final album cover design.