How I Used Brand Identity.

How have you used, developed or challenged the conventions of a real media product?

Untitled from Jamie Lawes on Vimeo.

How I have used technology.

How have you used the technology in research and planning construction and evaluation stages of your coursework? on Prezi

Stats on the viewing of our video.

I found this very exciting as our video had the most views reaching North America and Italy!!

Responses To My Surveys.

I posted the surveys on the third and received a fairly large number of response to all 3 of my surveys.
Here are some screen shots of the feedback on survey monkey.

What i have learned from my audience feedback.

I chose to use wordle as a method of analysing my audience feedback for each of my products. I produced a wordle for each survey and then analysed my findings. The first and most informative survey is my music video one. This is the wordle for my music video.

The advantage of using wordle is that you can immediately see what words were used most in all of the answers by all of the people who took the survey. As you can see from the wordle, the most commons words are 'music' and 'video', now these do not really tell me much but another commonly used word was 'catchy' which is positive feedback from the audience as they imply that the chosen song and video idea are catchy and kept their attention throughout the whole video. This result gave me confidence in what i have produced as i was a little worried and the video would not get such positive feedback due to some technical faults and setbacks such as the manipulating effects on final cut and a strange "bad TV" effect that attached to the video when uploading it to YouTube which i was worried would jeopardise the success of the video.  Also what i noticed was the word 'gangs', this word is in quite a large font size, two of my questions on the survey were about what conventions had i used that were similar to other hip hop/rap videos and how does the video represent the artist. Again there is a positive result from the audience feedback because the idea of gangs was part of the narrative and was important for us to show in order to highlight the context of the song and represent Professor green as an artist.

Before receiving any audience feedback i was pretty apprehensive as i was not feeling confident at all about the video. This was purely because of the editing we had to on half of the footage to make it look like it was shot in night vision when it was actually shot in the daytime. The editing did not look as great as I'd have liked it to and so i thought because that was my view, it would be everyone else's too. I then got a big shock when people rated the video 8 out of 10 along side another groups video which was rated 6 out of 10. I reached all of my target audience, i did hope to get at least one person in the age boundary of 22-25 but I'm not that disappointed because i feel confident that if they did answer it i would receive more positive feedback.

The second survey i wordled was for my digipak.

What i incorporated in this wordle that i forgot to put in the music video one was the age and gender stats. This was helpful yet does not produce very fair results as there wasn't an even number of boys or girls that took the survey and so would not form complete valid results. For example although most of the females had heard of professor green and would by his album, if more males had complete the survey it would have changed the overall stats in a way that they would possibly be more critical about the artist and his music as the males i would have asked to answer prefer a different genre of music. Which means the results would have possibly been more diverse and critical - which is also a good thing to have! 

As you can see from the wordle, 'liked' and 'yes' were the most commonly used words, now the yes answers clearly connoted a satisfying response although by using wordle, you cannot see what the questions were so as a viewer you have to interpret that the yes answers were indeed positive. However as the creator of both the survey and wordle i know that these are productive results. Here are the questions that required a Yes/No answer. 

Have you heard of Professor Green? & 

Would you pick the album up if you saw it in HMV? Based on it's appearance.

Now knowing the questions it is clear about the intention of the answer.

I didn't really expect any particular amount of good or bad feedback about my digipak as i was considering the fact that people do not buy Cd's that often anymore and the majority of my peers like styles of music that differs from Professor Green's genre of hip hop/rap.


The third and final survey i wordled was for my homepage.

Again the biggest word is Yes and for a good reason. The multiple yes responses were for questions such as 'have you heard of Professor Green' and 'After seeing In The Ear Record homepage would you want explore the rest of the website'. Clearly illustrating that the audience have an interest in Professor Green and would enjoy seeing more of his work. When analysing this wordle i took more notice of the smaller words which include 'download', 'dates', 'grime/rap' and 'biography'. I wanted to focus more on the smaller words as i initially thought that as they were small they therefore were not used very much and so maybe i should have made them particular features of the homepage more apparent and inviting. Now, i know it is good that people did notice these features and did comment saying they are what they have found from the homepage but i would have liked it to be a more advertising to the viewer and making them feeling like they have to click on the links to find out more amazing information about Professor Green.

I included the ages in this wordledigipak wordle illustrating that the same number of people in each ages group took this survey too. Also i would like to point out that a person in the age boundary of 22-25 completed this questionnaire in which i found when reading the comments, they were more in depth and slightly more critical than those of a younger age.

Music Video Audience feedback

My Surveys

These are some screen shots of when i was creating my surveys for each of my products. I chose to do a survey for each product so i can get literate data as well as using interviews and focus group methods.

 I chose a plain background as i didn't want to distract the people taking the survey so they would focus more on the questions and think about what they are saying.

I wrote a description of the purpose of the surveys at the top so the people taking the survey knew what the data would be used for and this may influence them to be a little more constructive. I done this for each survey.

I used several different question types from multiple choice with one answer, multiple choice to comment boxes. The image above shows one question type, the multiple choice with multiple answers but what i found annoying was that there was not an option where you could leave a note where i could say 'If no, please move onto question 5.' The only way i could have this was to have the small comment box underneath which is totally irrelevant.

This is just to show the links i need to use to post and send my survey around for people to take.

I also used images in my survey to show my digipak design so the people taking the surveys can easily refer back to the images on the same page/sheet.

Something that will work in my favour is that i own a tumblr account which has lots of members who would actually take the time to fill out the survey for me instead of just posting the link on facebook.

Editing Completed.

The editing of out music video was finally completed successfully and on time. However i was not able to be there when it was officially finished as i was at a university interview. (and successfully got a place) I viewed the final product and was amazed at the outcome as i knew the trouble we had as a group trying to produce it so watching all our effort and the actors enthusiasm made me proud. I knew the video would be a good, effective one because each group member had their own qualities when working together and as a media student so with all of them combined, there was no doubt that the film would not be a great one.

Here is the final music video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkAhxAie5UU

Digipack Front & Back Cover Final

I got the image i needed, edited it, put it on my template and finally completed all of my ancillery texts!

Here is my back and front cover.

Digipack Inside Cover Final.

I have officially completed the inside covers for my digipack. I used microsoft word to make them and found it quite easy to use. I used word instead of the schools programme GIMP because i am one, more familiar with t and two i would not be able to produce what i wanted in the way i wanted in, for example i would not be abe to get the font i wanted with a clear background. Whereas by using word i can download the font and simplly change the text to the desire font. The only thing about using word was when layering the shapes, text boxes and images i have to put them in place then ct and paste each one to go on top of the other.

Here is the final product. The image isn't the clearest because as i made it on word i could only print screen the work and save it as an image which caused the slightly low resolution.

Last day of filming.

As filming on Wednesday did not go to plan due to our main character not turning up and the weather being bad we decided to do it the next day, Thursday. Because of all the trouble we had and mess about that happened with filming this video we was very anxious and motivated to get absolutely everything done on just a few hours. We had a media lesson at the end of the day so we used this to do the shots of Joe, the guy playing the other singer in the song, as we had all of the gorillas. This will also save us time later on when we filmed the lion’s bits.

So we managed to do all of Joe's shots and a few extras in an hour which was a complete result as we were on track and full of confidence that we will get everything filmed. We went up to our class and met some of the lion actors and waited for Jimmy, the PG actor, as he had to go home and get him clothes and then get back to the school. Once everyone got there we went straight out to the field where we was filming and began straight away as we did not want take to long as we was working with 11/12 year old and they would not be allowed out to late. I enjoyed this bit the most because it was interesting to see how the kids respond to your instructions. For example i was trying to explain to the lions how they have to walk and act   towards the camera then when we done the first take it was a little humorous because they were too shy to be as broad as they needed. But we kept showing them and getting them to do it with us to make them a little more comfortable and then when it came to the second take one on the lions just really went for and was waving his arms and bowling amazingly which also gave the other two lions courage to just go with the flow. The footage came out really well, we found out that just because we was using night vision, it didn't necessarily mean we had to film in the night time. We looked on the camera with the night vision filter on, during the day time and found that we didn't have to wait until half past 4 to film. This would have made it so much simpler if we knew this before we started filming. All we would need to do is alter the light/darkness and contrast on the shot when editing.  I had to leave at 4:45 as i had work but just before i left we was beginning the confrontation sequence of the video which was exciting because it meant that both "gangs" had to get very loud and boisterous. One shot i was interested to watch was having the gangs run at the camera. I explained to the actors which way they had to run and that they had to run quite close to the camera. We shot the gorillas running first as they were older and understood what was being asked and this would then be an example for when the lions do it. It was funny because some of us were standing in a single file line behind the camera obviously so the actors don't run into us.  When the lions were doing theirs i stood back so i could direct them while some of the others were in the line. I explained to them who was running where and that the lion on the bike had to get off, drop the bike and then run while the other lions ran the other side. Well this was the highlight of the day because they didn't quite understand what i said as when we said action the lion on the bike jumped off the bike then ran while the other 2 lions just stood there for 2 seconds, and then ran off. We retook the shot making it crystal clear what we needed them to do, once they knew what they was doing they did it perfectly.

I left the guys filming as i had to leave but i caught up with them later that night and asked how the rest of the filming went and they said it was good and we got everything we needed.
I wasn't too sure that we would actually get our video complete; i thought we would have had only half of the video and just making do with what we had. The 2 things that made the filming process for us so long was one, thinking we needed to film in the night time, Which meant we had to wait for half 4 to come to film. The second thing is working with children. We are glad we did because we have a great idea and will have produced something of a high quality but it is a nightmare at the same time as the children had quite a few other commitments such as outside of school clubs or productions they needed to attend. Also as they were under 18 we had to ask permission from their parents, which wasn't a problem but it meant that when their parents said they couldn't do it, they couldn't do it. This left us in the lurch waiting for another available date that suited everybody. For example, the reason our main actor could not film on Wednesday was because his mum told him he had to clean his room which was an incredible inconvenience for the group as we had all of the other actors. It was at these times i felt bad for the other participants because i felt we was wasting their time but fortunately we had really good actors and they understood.

Photo's for CD cover.

We was meant to have been filming on Wednesday but our main character couldnt make it so while we had all of the other actors we decided to use them for photos for our digipacks. These are some of the photos we took.

Last day of filming

I am really insistent that we get absolutely everything done wasting no time as this is the last chance we have to film the rest of our footage. We need to get a lot of footage done to complete our video and only have until next wednesday to edit it. The editing will not be hard because we know where all the shots go and how long they need to be so i am confident that we will meet the deadline presuming tonights filming goes to plan!

To make the evening go smoother and quicker we wrote out a brief detailed shot list so we can tick off the shots we have done so we will maintain organised.

Digipack Inside covers.

These are my final covers for the inside of my digipack.

Almost complete homepage.

I have finally almost completed my homepage, all that i need to do it to put my edited video on there and change the banner image to my own. The only reason i have not put my own image on yet is because i have been having trouble with my memory stick and so i could not get it on to the mac. However, i just realised i could have actually have sent the image by email. I will make sure i do that tonight. Here is how my homepage is looking at the moment.

For an unknown reason the video clip i put on of the actual Jungle music video does not appear when i visit the site but it is there. I will replace it with my music video. Also my pages on the menu are hyperlinked along with the links and the bottom of the homepage. Here are some of the pages i created as my hyperlinks.

Peer feedback on music video.

Each group watched each others music videos and gave feedback on the video at this stage. The feedback that was given to our group was

"Long shot -too lengthy (untitled  1-10-1)

Include Joe in it a bit

Good feel to piece"

"Long black out at 46 seconds (1-11-1)"

"Promoting violence and strange product placement"

As one of the members making this film it was a little frustrating reading the feedback because there are general, inevitable reasons for some of the comments made. for example there is only one shot of Joe in the film because we have yet to film the rest of his parts yet. Also the 'promoting violence' is the point of the video, to show that if you live in Hackney, that is what you will grow up around and become interested in. The 'strange product placement' isn't a big deal because they are not the highlight of the shots. There were only two situations with this. one of them is the shot of the traffic moving fast in which your attention would be drawn more to the cars than the specific surroundings. The second one is when we were showing the nature of graffiti amongst the community that was on a pet shop shutter. The shop name was clearly in the shot which i agree is very obvious but i would not say has a great impact taking away the focus of the graffiti.

Front & Back Digipack design.

I used Microsoft Word to create my template and begin to produce my digipack cover. I just need to add my own images.