28 November 2010

Getting audience feedback on your final products- Evaluation Question 3

Think of using YouTube, Vimeo but also Protagonise (see below). Of course you could organise a screening with a questionnaire for your audience to fill in. Aim to shape the responses, asking people to comments on strengths and weaknesses and what image they get of the band/artist. Do your products fit together? Can they recognise the genre and are the conventions working in your products.

The more constructive comments you get, the better the quality of your discussion in Question 3.

Example of Feedback on Protagonise here.
Example of questionnaire at screening here.

If you're struggling with ideas to promote your artist...

... then look at this link. You could use these headings to organise your own strategy.

26 November 2010

By Tuesday... and on Tuesday (30.11.10)

By Tuesday / Home Learning:
You need to come to the lesson with your rough (or finished!) digipack and magazine advert. You'll be finishing this task in the pod in the first lesson and post it on your blog.

You need to have started on Evaluation question 1. At the very least, you should all have filled in your grids using Goodwin's and Vernallis' ideas to analyze your own video (double-sided hand out distributed in class; if you've lost the sheet, don't wait till Tuesday to tell me). The accompanying recommended activity for question 1 is the idea of the 9 frames with comments. Refer to your booklets for examples.

On Tuesday:
You will be finishing / posting the first evaluation task on your blogs on Tuesday as well (second lesson) if not already finished at home.

Finally I expect most of you will have started/completed at least one more evaluation question / activity by the end of the triple.

The rest of the evaluation tasks will be completed on Thursday and at home.

You are running out of time now so it should be a fairly intensive week to finish by the deadline! We know you can all do it though.

Reminder about other 3 evaluation questions:
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 new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Copy of the Assessment booklet for Evaluation with examples from other students - see link on the side.
Here is a help sheet to help you think about and discuss audience and your video.


UPDATED - Finished (and not quite finished) videos

Thank you to those who have uploaded the videos. We can now start assessing them. Do watch them!
Frankie's:
http://musicblogfrankie.blogspot.com/2010/11/music-video.html

25 November 2010

Deadline...

We only know of two of you who said that the video could only be finished by Friday. No one else has contacted us. Not only is it disrespectful, it is also likely to affect the marks given for time management and organisation.

The deadlines are there to allow us to assess the different parts of your portfolio fairly and to moderate. It is crucial that you abide by deadlines or at the very least discuss your circumstances.

As previously stated, we will contact home by tomorrow afternoon if your final video is not on your blog and you haven't contacted us.

23 November 2010

DEADLINE FINAL CUT VIDEO

Since one person at least had to do some last minute filming, and due to the fact that some of you have been absent, can we all agree that all music videos will be finished and exported by the end of Thursday (25th November) and embedded in your blog? Yes, that's pushing back the deadline a little further so please, stick to it...

If you know of a good reason why it won't be completed, please let Ms Lyall or myself know by the end of Wednesday (tomorrow); otherwise we will need to contact home.

The work so far is really promising. You just need a last push to get it done and dusted. I'll be around on Thursday, and in the pod in the afternoon.

Remember that your ancillary tasks must be completed ASAP.

16 November 2010

BRING YOUR ASSESSMENT BOOKLET TO THURSDAY'S LESSON - UPDATED AND SIGNED.

Ms Lyall and I will be updating comments / assessing work so far. Have a look at criteria and aim to evaluate where you stand and what should be priorities. We'll distribute additional sheets if necessary for the Research and Planning section. Get a parental signature.

Deadlines and work ahead

Can I please urge you to use your Assessment Booklet to remind yourselves of deadlines (though some are slightly extended) and start on your Evaluation questions, particularly Question 1.

Deadlines:

By the end of this week : Deadline Final Cut of Music Video.
However in the light of the fact that some groups have had to reshoot, we are extending this to next Tuesday (23rd November) - video exported by 5pm and embedded as an mp4 (or .mov) on your blog.

Please keep in mind that the first lesson will not be in the pod as we will look at magazine adverts and how to tackle the second Evaluation Question.

Deadline Ancillary products - Tuesday 30th November (slightly extended)

Deadline Evaluation / Coursework (ready for moderation and assessment the following week):
Sunday 5th December - 10pm.

You can (should) get started on your Evaluation now.
Evaluation Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.

See booklet for first task and students' examples. Nine frames with comments.
Additionally complete an analysis of your video using the double-sided sheet distributed in class (using Goodwin on one side, Vernallis on the other).

Other questions to start thinking about:
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 new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

9 November 2010

Refining your marketing strategy

You need to start thinking about pulling all the threads together in terms of your marketing campaign / promotional package. Use the research you've done on labels on music TV to work out which would represent / play your artist. Think about your Digipack and how it will tie in with your audience research. Use the work you've done on established artists to help you map out everything.

Below you will find bits and bobs to help further hopefully:

Think of labels for your music genre / type of band or artist.

Remember to work on your CD cover and digipack:
Think about:
1. images used (layout, colour, style etc) text (fonts, size, positioning, colour etc) The relationship between text and images - how do they work together i.e. anchorage, differing functions of the front, back, inside sleeve
2. how the iconography represents the band, the genre of music and their overall image.
3. are there any signifiers exclusive to the band/genre
4. what the cover says about the institutional context of the music ie the label, mainstream, underground, first album etc
5. what can we learn about the potential/target audience from the cover ie specialist, niche, familiarity with the band, compilation, mainstream etc.
6. and anything else of relevance, including influences from similar (real) products.
You will have a lesson on Magazine adverts next week but you could start thinking about where a magazine ad would appear.

Finally, remember to refine your audience research using the technology available.


Creating a form

You could try and use this site to build a form for audience research and feedback.

Look at this example from another school; this is a good exercise to plan your marketing campaign. I don't have access to the results page however since I did not create this one!

7 November 2010

Student blogs - level 4 for research and planning (and just got into level 4 for evaluation)

Look particulalrly at the Audience Research conducted.
http://fahminaali.blogspot.com/

You might also want to take a look at this one:
http://paigelidburymedia.blogspot.com/

Finally, this one was noted by examiners for documenting the "whole journey" very well:
http://musicvideocm3emma.blogspot.com/

4 November 2010

Linking video and ancillary tasks - an example

Pete Fraser has posted an example of how to evaluate how well your promotional package works; this is not to say that the digipack and advert are Level 4 (they're not) but merely to illustrate how it can be done.


Of course you could do something similar for a different evaluation question (except question 1)
Can I also refer you back to one early post on this blog? And at the end of the project,...
Remember that the 4 evaluation questions are:
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 new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

2 November 2010

Adding a poll to your blog to get feedback from peers

There are many ways you could use a poll though below I'm only looking at a simple multi-choice question, for example to get feedback on different ideas for CD Cover.

The easiest way is to upload the photos you want people to choose from in a new post then add a gadget on the side to allow them to vote (Design > Add a Gadget > Poll)

If you want more options and to insert your poll within a post, you'll have to prepare a form then embed the code.
Go THERE for instructions or simply straight to http://docs.google.com then Open a new Form.
Again make sure you had your pictures / rough cut etc... (whatever you want feedback on) and make sure to direct your friends to your blog post through Facebook or Twitter.

Could look something like that: