Final Blogging Task

After a long road of hard work of researching, planning and production I can honestly say I am very happy with all my work this year as I've dedicated a lot of time in making sure the majority of blogs have been completed.

I am very happy with the outcome of the music video and my ancillary products and the journey has been exciting. 

Ta-ra 

Evaluation: Final Progress review

In comparison to my AS with my A2 media work I can clearly see and acknowledge all of my improvements and I feel content with how far I've come.

In AS my use of ICT was far more restricted as I repeatedly used the same media resources, consequently I would end up using a small, limited variety of pictures and words. However, I could of used a broad range of texts and different methods to present my ideas, through websites such as Wix. Where as this year I've developed my skills in all areas by varying the use of different media technologies.When presenting my ideas I have managed to  vary the use of different media sources, for instance this time I've used sources such as ThingLink, PowToon, Slideshare and I have achieved in making my work more interactive rather than it being dull and full of words. Also this year I have made my work far more detailed and concise. During AS I didn't manage to attain the opportunity to use ICT to my full advantage as I didn't have access to internet at home therefore, I could only blog within school hours. Where as this year I have used my time wisely to complete all of my blog during as well as after school.

In terms of my 97 blogs they all have detailed explanations regarding the whole process from the beginning to the end. From the stages of choosing which song to use and to the stage of actually going out and filming and then editing the footage. 

I think that the gaps in my blogging occurred whilst I was on my Christmas holidays,as I had forgotten to blog about my personal research, therefore I had a lot of work to make up for. But I made up for the time lost by spending extra hours after school, this way I gradually went back into the rhythm of blogging constantly. 

If I could re-do or change in terms of my blogging I think I'd personally look for more media technologies,to present my work.The number of blogs would have increased if I had completed all of the blogging checklist.

1. Evaluation Question: In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2. Evaluation Question: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

For Evaluation question 2 I have created my own website to present my ideas and answer. the link is attached below.

http://solangekmp.wix.com/evaluationquestion1

3. Evaluation Question: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

4. Evaluation Question: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Production of Ancillary product: Digipak Completed

Completed - inside panel.

Complete - front cover.

Production of Ancillary product: Advertisement Complete

Final advertisement.

Production of Ancillary product: Audience feedback

Production of Ancillary product: Digipak & advertisement in progress

As I've started to create my 4 panel digipak, I've been taking screen shots throughout the process from the beginning to the complete digipak.

The shots are as followed:

• The final image I chose for the front cover with the artistic name of 'LUIS JONES'.
• Next I was deciding with what name for the album I would go for, my 2 options were 'First Step' and 'Only Yesterday'. Thanks to some friends who were helping me I decided to go for 'Only Yesterday'.
• After naming the album I started to look for images of guitars until I found one which I liked. Using the wand tool I removed all of the background and began to list/number the songs and aligning them according to the shape of the guitar.
• I started to then put in the bar code, legal information and record label logo.
• I finally then added the added the album name and enlarged the image of Hadi as well as adding the name of the album, artist name and record label logo in the centre of the album. 

I then moved on to the inside panel adding a template of a CD and adding the album name and artist name. I started to then look through the pictures I had available and went for the one of Hadi sitting down and then used the wand tool again and removed the background. Finally, I then duplicated the image and made one larger than the other adding a shadow on both the images.

Possible fonts that I was going to use for my album cover.

After completing the digipak, I began to start completing the advertisement using all of the tools available in photo shop such as wand tool, cropping, enlarging, eraser and so on. This was my final poster with the improvements made after I got some feedback from my audience.

Production of Ancillary product

As we already succeeded in completing the photo session to get the pictures and poses we desired, in today's class I began to continue practising with Photoshop and decided to use the picture shown below. Using the wand tool I removed all of the background to achieve the final shot.  As I am hoping to stick to my black and white theme with only the guitar in the back cover being in colour. 

Planning Ancillary product: Costume & Location

Planning Ancillary product: Photos for digipak/advertisment

In today's lesson we accomplished our goal of getting together and taking a variety of photos for our album covers. We took close-ups, mid-shots and long shots from different angles so we could pick from all of them and decide ourselves on which one we were going to use for our album cover. 
I created a GIF to show all of the potential pictures to use for my album cover. 
The reason I wanted different poses, shots and angles was due to the fact that from my research I came to see that this was what other artist's from the same genre as mine did and used as well.


<a href="https://imgflip.com/gif/g6u7t"><img src="https://i.imgflip.com/g6u7t.gif" title="made at imgflip.com"/></a>

Ancillary product - Mock-up of advertisement

Ancillary product: Mock-up of digipak

After pitching my idea to my teacher, I put all of my ideas and presented it on Prezi making some changes after the feedback I received from my teacher and target audience.

Design activity - Photoshop practise

In this lesson we had a teacher help us with how to get around Photoshop and learn what not to do. The skills I have acquired and got a hang of are;

• How to place an image and expand it without making the image blurry.
• Adding in text as well as trying out different fonts.
• Using 'Magic Wand' which is where we can remove the background that we don't want.
• And overall, getting the hand of using Photoshop with the basic skills covered. 

I learnt that to avoid getting a blurry image it should be shot to fit the panel and not the other way round. I also have the barcode on but didn't manage to add a record label logo and the information to go with it.

Final design for the digipak I designed. 

Researching Ancillary product - Analysis of 3 advertisments

I was unable to fing the album advert for Jason Mraz's album 'We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Everything'.

Researching Ancillary product: Analysis of 3 digipaks

I've done some research of other artists who are similar to my artist and using ThingLink I have analysed their front cover, CD and back cover. I've also analysed how synergy has been made and the conventions the albums follow for the genre of my artist which is a variety of; pop/folk/acoustics and soul.

Planning Ancillary product: Short list

Planning Ancillary product - Do's and Dont's

Using Mindmeister I have listed the do's and don'ts for the ancillary product.