My Completed Evaluation (Finally!!)

Completed Evaluation Update

I am still trying to export my evaluation, so I can upload it on here, however every time I try, different parts have been going offline, so are blank or unrendered, I have managed to find all the parts missing, and put them on my digistick, so when I open the project, it can find them. However, it is still having difficulties trying to relocate the files, but I am frantically trying to solve this though, so I can upload it onto here as soon as possible.

Evaluation Editing Completed!

Today I finished editing my evaluation for the deadline, and it has been exported to the teacher's digistick for marking. I'm really glad I was able to complete everything by this deadline, as it's been very busy and stressful for the past few weeks, spending most of my free time on it! I will upload a copy of it on here as soon as possible, however I don't have a digistick large enough to hold the file, so once I have found one to use, I can then upload it on here.

Webpage Link

Here's the link to the fully working webpage I made for MGMT:

http://www.wix.com/stephi261/mgmt

Evaluation Progress

Well for the past week or so, I've been frantically trying to complete my evaluation, as I was only able to start filming it on Tuesday. However, I have now started editing, so I'm glad I've made quite speedy progress. I was held up slightly, as I wanted to make a few tweaks to my music video, by making sure there was no blank footage at the end, and adding in some video information, as many real music videos have. I wanted to do this on Monday, however, I have had to share a iMac with another group, and when I went to edit, they had beaten me to the computer, so I couldn't edit it until Tuesday morning. I have also been going into school an hour early to get as far as possible with my project, and managed to complete my evaluation filming on Wednesday morning, and have been editing since. I've almost finished editing the first question fully, including screen shots etc. but I think I will first make a rough cut, of all the talking parts, and then edit the questions, opening titles and screenshots etc. in afterwards, so if I do happen to run out of time, the content will still be there.
Thankfully, the deadline has been lengthened, as it's been very stressful trying to complete it fully, so the half term will be a welcome break, but it is a shame I can't do any editing in the holiday, as I don't have the equipment. But hopefully a week away from it will mean I can complete it quickly when I return, and possibly give me a fresher perspective. :)

Audience Feedback for Music Video

I showed my music video to a large focus group, and got them to write down good and bad points, and this is what they said:


Good Points:

• Very upbeat, fast pace, fits with the pace of the song, and colourful x3
• Good use of effects x4
• The use of Stop Motion x8
• Visuals represent the music very well, and is fun to watch.
• Nice elements of Bricolage x9
• Sky time lapse was cool x2
• Interesting use of effects to represent his thoughts and feelings.
• Good timing - Cutting on the beat x4
• Theme of 'Kids' shown well.
• I liked the end, when the crayons spelt out 'Kids' and 'MGMT'

Negative Points/To Improve:

• Crayons/Stopmotion overused x5
• Too much use of effects
• Cut stopmotion exactly on the beat, perhaps increase the amount of frames per second to make the transitions smoother.
• More performance, to stop him looking disjointed x6
• Confused by performance.
• Lip syncing was often completely out x2
• Some of footage I hadn't made x2
• Didn't feel like a music video.
• Too slow at the start getting into it.
• Too many shots.
• Camera moves a bit in animation.
• No sense of real narrative.

From this audience feedback, I can see that many people agreed on certain ideas about my film, such as the use of bricolage, when I incorporated old children's TV shows, and my use of Stop Motion. I'm quite happy with the positive comments given, as I think they convey the ideas I wanted the audience to interpret, and as many agreed, I think that shows I have managed to appeal to my younger audience, in a broad, direct way.


The negative comments seem to be quite varied, and it seems there are more, but I think as they are so different, that is just different peoples taste, as they all liked many points within it, so the negatives were not as evident, or negative. Also there is some contradiction, as many people liked the Bricolage, yet I had a few negative comments about the Bricolage, so this just shows how different people's opinions were. I know there was a lot of Stop Motion used, but it was a Stop Motion video, so that is why there was so much, as well as this, I chose it to be concept, as it was this format, so the comment about a lack of narrative, music videos can be Performance, Concept or Narrative, and I incorporated a little performance into my concept video.


I looked at the lip syncing as I had a few negative comments, but after watching it many times and seeing if I could adjust it, I concluded that it was simply my singer's mouth movement that makes it seem like it is out of time. As we filmed it, the song was playing loudly, and the actor sang perfectly in time with it, as it can be heard on the original un-muted clip, but my actor, naturally doesn't open his mouth a lot when speaking, so when singing, it seems like it could be slightly out, when in fact, it is just his lack of mouth movement. When filming I could've tried to change this, by getting him to open his mouth more, however at the time, when hearing the music and him sing, I could tell it was in time, so it didn't seem an issue; as well as this, his singing may have seemed erratic, or unrealistic had he tried, so I think how it is now is best. I do value all this feedback, and have attempted to make changes where appropriate, but this is only a very small, albeit critical audience, as they were all media students, so it is slightly bias, and likely they would pick up on more issues as they are used to analysing music videos. Also I think some of this feedback, may not have taken into account how much I managed to achieve, working alone, I'm aware it is no reason for it to be lesser quality, but to have achieved that music video, with not a huge amount of negative comments really, I am quite happy with.

Completed Webpage!

Here's the link to my completed and published website for MGMT:
http://www.wix.com/stephi261/mgmt


I'm really pleased with the result, I have been tweaking certain parts, every time I looked at it, but I feel it is finished now. The changes I have made, include, linking the events page, to another page with events listed on it, and the merchandise advert to a page with t-shirts for sale on it.

This is the homepage of the MGMT website I created.

This is the events page, linking from the events text, on the homepage
I found the events on the real MGMT website, so the information included is accurate and working.

This is the merchandise page, linking to the "Brand New Merch Here" link on the homepage. The merchandise on here, I created using a basic t-shirt template, and incorporated the font on the website, forming a link between the two, and ultimately, the band, as this would encourage that font to be a recognisable part of them.

 When I first "completed" the website, I had links, but only the links to Facebook, Myspace and Amazon, to purchase the single were fully working. But, I decided to included a few other pages, to make the website a little more realistic, and give it slightly more depth than just the homepage.