Evaluation – A2 Media

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

 A convention that I have met when I was designing my CD cover was to use the disco
light effect that was used on Darren Styles album. I did this because then the audience
know that my artists music is associated to being played in clubs and disco’s.
 Another convention that I followed was to use the blue as a way of making my CD
cover look cool. Also I have my artist getting the gaze of the audience by having him as
the centre of attention in the middle of the cover. By having them catching the gaze of
the camera it will attract the attention of the audience.
 By having the Artists name on the front cover of the album I’m fitting another
convention, as all of the examples that I looked had the artists name on the cover. This
is done because if the name wasn’t on the front then the audience wouldn’t know who’s
CD they was buying.
 Continued
 Conventions that I didn’t follow was to have the name of the CD
on the cover too. I did this because I didn’t feel that I needed to
put this information on the cover as it is a self titled debut album,
so the artists name wouldn’t be needed twice.
 Another convention that I didn’t meet was the mise-en-scene of
the album cover, as the cover for Darren Styles album has him
standing in a plain white t-shirt, yet I chose to put my artist in a
black hooded jumper, I did this because as I saw from my
questionnaire results have shown I’m aiming for a younger
audience, by my artist wearing a hoody I feel that it will be easier
for me to reach out to a younger audience.
 When I was doing my website I had to take have in mind a bunch of
conventions that would have to be followed to make sure that the audience
know what my website is about but also had to not follow them in such a
way that my artists website was individual.
 Some of the elements that I have got on my website are conventional to
the ones of a music artist, such pages as; News, Music, Store and Videos.
 I also put a page on for downloads, this was for the target audience as
from my questionnaire I discovered that this sort of thing is what they
wanted from a website.
 Also a lot of the things that I have on my page are conventional to
websites of this genre, and also music artists in general. Such things as
having tickets available for upcoming shows, chances to win prizes and
behind the scene access.
 A convention that I didn’t use for my website was to have the artists music
playing in the background as people browse the website, I did this because
I know from experience that it can become quite o, and I didn’t know how
to do this on the programme that I used, with better time management I
would have found out how to do so and then I could have incorporated this
element to it.
 Most of the websites that I looked at in my research had a section on the
home page were you would be able to buy tickets for their shows. But
once again due to poor time management I wasn’t able to put this in
either.
 How did you use media technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation stages?

 Technologies that I have used in my research stage of the

coursework was to use the internet to research website, CD
covers and music videos. I used YouTube to look for and view the
music videos.
 Another technology that I used to get my research was Microsoft
Excel, I carried out a questionnaire and I put the results into
Excel and created a pie chart for each questions results, this way
I was able to see the comparison between the answers. This
meant I could see the most popular, easier.
 In the planning stage of my task I once again used different
technologies, I used Microsoft Publisher to plan the layouts for
both my website and my CD cover.
 I also used a Fujitsu FinePix v10 to take pictures of the
storyboarding that I had drawn out, and so that I didn’t have to
scan them onto my computer it was easier to take the pictures on
a camera and then upload them to my computer.
 In the production stage I used Macromedia Fireworks to edit the
images that I wanted to use for my album cover, I used various
features on there such as ‘magic wand’ and the ‘lasso tool’ to get
the effects that I wanted to achieve.
 I also used Macromedia Dreamweaver to create my website,
where I used tools such as creating tables to get the layout of my
website correct. I also managed to use various skills to create
such things as roll-over buttons and to get the main header of the
website to change colour when you scroll over it.
How effective is the combination of
your main product and ancillary texts?
My ancillary products will work well to get the audience to
watch my music video because say a bunch of club goers
see my CD in a store, they will buy it because it attracts
their attention, then from my research qurestionnaire I
know that if the audience like an artist they are likely to
visit their website and that is were they will be able to see
the video. It all works well together because they all
promote eachother.