A2 advanced Media Hannah Palmer

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

Real media products by s0015160 on GoAnimate

Real Media products 2 by s0015160 on GoAnimate

These characters were designed with the idea of them being simple showing no features, as I wanted it to be able to represent a large variety of people so I kept the idea of silhouettes and cut outs only really showing their movements. As I wanted more people to be able to relate to the characters, a lot of the research I did helped me with character design. The main inpiration for the idea of silhoette characters came from a shot in the animated music video 'I have you heart' which is a collaboration between:
Jim  Batt   - Animator
Molly  Crabapple -   Illustrator
Kim  Boekbinder  -  Musician

The shot:

It showed an example of how the details on the character weren't needed to understand who they are and what stereotype they belong, for example the fat rich corrupt man and the doctor in a long lab coat.

Character designs of both sides used:

Stuart Hall's theory (1980) demonstrates that even though one message is sent out, that not one understanding is made from the text and allows for a media text to be consumed individually and takes in to consideration the meaning of a text and the relationship an individual person may understand from this in connection to sociological factors. Hall wrote about 3 different types of audience readings of the text: Dominant or preferred – completely agree with the chosen message by the producer

· Negotiated -Partial agreement, opinion is presented ending in compromise

· Oppositional – Disagree completely and rejects the preferred reading

I mentioned this theory as I want the message of my music video to be clear. My music video is based on a song about love and death so I wanted it to be clear what it was about using symbols stereotyped or mentioned with the lyrics and then using a couple in the video. Levi Strauss's theory is of the contrast of Binary opposites for example good vs Evil and Light Vs Dark. The audience doesnt just understand words on just meaning but also the reflecting opposite. The understanding of the idea of a villain depends entirely on our understanding of the world as one member of the audience may perceive 'evil' differently to another person. The theory enables the audience to have an understanding of the narrative before it even begins and having opposites within the media allows for a climax and equilibrium to make it more interesting to the audience. Although I don't have a set character for the role of villain or hero, this theory also still applies to my work with the idea of life and death, with life being the positive and death being the negative role and the video follows the idea of the battle between the two forces.

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

Other Media Technologies not included on the Prezi are:
Youtube: Also used in research and not just presenting my work. Using this website I was able to research a large variety of existing music videos which helped me plan out my own video based on codes and conventions gathered from these videos. It also allowed me to put my own video onto the web 2.0 which allowed me to share it on the social media 'Facebook' to gather feedback and show it to a wider audience.
Prezi: This website was just used to present my work, written and images, neatly and in a creative manner which made it easy to read and understand.
Blogger: Blogger is a popular blogging website which enabled me to collect all my work into one place, I used it to present my research and finding from it. Along with post regular updates on the animating process until I could place a a final video up. Which helps show the progression of all the work.
Google Chrome: This is a form of web 2.0, which is what allowed me to go into greater depth in my research and also allowed me to present my findings and final products in one place. Along with this it allows for me to get greater feedback from places all over the world instead of just nearby places.
I switched between using my laptop at home and the PCs at college, this is because at home I had Sony Vegas, anime studio and the files I needed so it was easier to work at home which meant I spent most evenings working on animation, along with this my laptop has the driver installed needed for my graphics tablet to work with it, unlike the college computers which don't have it installed. So I mainly used the PCs from the written and research part of all the coursework whilst I used the laptop for the creative side.
Along with this, I also used a drawing tablet to enable me to draw the characters and backgrounds in the final music video, this meant I had more control over the designs because I could control the lines and colouring better unlike if I used a mouse.

an Image of the same type of tablet I used to design my characters:

By using a tablet I could take sketch drawings as shown below on the right and recreate them on Photoshop, while keeping the lines straighter then if I'd use a mouse as I find I have a steadier hand when it comes to drawing with a tablet and it gives the final images a smoother finish which I thought was important. As the main characters themselves are very simple so I wanted to put some detail in the only other character shown in the video.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

(the first video would not upload but its a very short video and is also on a previous blog post about my video feedback)

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?:

The biggest connection between my ancillary texts and the video itself, is the idea of light and dark. Which is why the texts feature a candle burning and the video nearly always features the lantern. This is because of the song name ‘I will follow you into the dark’ so in contrast to this element of dark, I used the light to represent life as the song is originally about someones lover dying and him not wanting to let them go alone. Which is why is I’ve shown the candle being blown out on the album inside to really show the idea of light and dark as the front cover shows it being lit, because in the beginning of the video it shows his partner as still alive. But when you open the album or begin watching the video the light soon fades away. Because the animation style I did was quite simple and can be described as silhouettes, I wanted to keep the ancillary texts simple to match this style as well. I decided to add the two characters on the poster as it made more of a connection to the video, which is also why I included them in the CD case, although I featured an extra drawing of the characters helping each other out from inside a large lantern which once again deliberately connects to this idea of light and dark, following the narrative of the song itself. The design on the CD doesn't feature a lantern or the characters but still follows the theme of light and dark. This is done because the drawings on the CD are light drawings, created by waving a light around in a dark room and capturing it on a camera with a slow shutter speed. This means you can create a large variety patterns which I would be unable to get the same effect if I tried to draw them onto Photoshop first. I also prefered combining all the different patterns together as the smooth movements of each makes it look like one light is traveling all over the disk. I'd planned on using the candle on the digipack and the poster from the beginning. Although I'd considered taking a photo and using that instead but after considering the fact the video I made is animated I thought it'd be best if I drew it instead. Even though its a digital painting and has a lot more detail then the animation style I use I thought it'd fit the overall theme for the products better. I had to use a my graphics tablet again for this drawing and proceeded to draw a lit candle and one that's been blown on, overall the candle took an hour and a half to draw due to the detail required.

The CD case: