Evaluation - Question 1

We also posted question 1 onto Youtube
Tom created this video.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challange forms and conventions of a real media product?

The link is .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3JfLCulrow

Evaluation - Question 3

We posted the question as a video on youtube.
Tom completed this .

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The link is .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZmOJiXrGU0

Evaluation - Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product & ancillary tasks?

The combination of our ancillary tasks as well as our final video I feel is very effective, they work together to create the stereotypical view of a paranormal documentary. They share similar codes and conventions of a media product with the same colour schemes, for example the green and the same texts. They all share the same ideology and create a 'young' theme. It creates a young theme altogether as the documentary doesn't follow the normal conventions of a documentary and so therefore is not as boring as the more typical documentaries, it features young people and is aimed at a pretty young audience. The poster we create involved the main presenter looking into the camera with a torch, he looks pretty scared and the facial expressions he shows connote adventure and so therefore youth. The double page spread article is aimed at almost a pretty young audience also as the language used is quite 'stylish' and would speak to a younger generation more so than that of an older audience, and the idea that Fiona and Craig are celebrities also connotes youth as these are seen to have an 'obsession' with celebrity culture and would simply watch a program due to a certain character. All the ancillary tasks work together to create a certain stereotypical view and they all connote the genre of the documentary via the mise-en-scene. Generally they are very effective and in the real media world would increase audience views etc as the products would be in the public eye; catching attention and making people wonder what the whole program is about. I think that if we were to do the ancillary tasks again we could perhaps on the double page spread include a picture of the whole team or just Fiona & Craig as these are the main characters within the clip. Using these two on the magazine would also talk better to the audience like in more of an conversational type narrative as they would perhaps feel like they know who they are talking to, and just incase they didn’t know who the celebrities were by name or face. The final video would eventually be more promoted by the ancillary tasks if they were to be posted in the required destinations.

Final Ancillary Task - Double Page Spread

Here is our final ancillary task, Craig Wassell created the text, I extracted the image from our actual footage filmed by Thomas Jessop and the title 'New Kids On The Shock' connotes that the program is new, about kids getting a shock and is a play on words from the commonly used phrase new kids on the block. We copied the layout of a James May article.

Final Ancillary Task - Poster

Out of all the posters that we created , we decided to use my idea as we thought it was closer to the original of the Ice Truckers one and fitted its criteria more.

Evaluation; Question 4

Ghost Nutters; Steph Bowen

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

A new media technology is for example the internet, this is new media as it allows for interaction other than the before more linear type of media for example a newspaper.
We used many new technologies throughout the whole project ranging from digital camera’s to the world wide web.
In the construction stages we used more new media software, the main piece of software that we used was Adobe Premiere Pro, this allowed us after the video footage had being captured onto the computer using another new media technology of a USB cable, we could then edit it. During the editing process we were able to ‘cut’ out bits we didn’t need, replace the sound and also add our own music, I.e the theme tune. We had to make sure that we created Sergei Eisenstein’s theory of a vertical montage. We did this very effectively with the sound FX, especially when the scenes cut we had an effect, for example a bang that would sound in tune with the cut. We also had a very good montage in the title sequence with the beat of the theme working very well with the footage behind it. Also in constructing our ancillary tasks new technologies played a massive role as we used software’s such as Photoshop elements 5.0 for our poster allowing for the image coloration to be changed to make the desired image look of a more stereotypically scary design, for example black and white or green. We also used QuarkXpress 7 for our double page spread. We used more linear media technologies however for the research of this but we also looked on the internet for ideas of what to include in our article. Quark allows big chunks of text called the body text to be placed on around a set border and images making any project look professional. For the research stages we relied very heavily on the use of new media technologies especially the internet. We used very mainstream ways of researching for our ideas including Youtube and Sky+. We used Youtube a lot for looking at clips of the documentary we wanted to base ours upon ‘Most Haunted’. Using this new media allowed us to look at comments under the video of what people thought to it and so therefore these could perhaps help us with our ideas, we were able to pause the clip and discuss what we could use thought worked and what we needed to film for our own documentary. We also used television features such as Sky+, this is a fairly new media technology and is hugely popular as it allows for live television to be paused, rewound and recorded all at the push of a button. This was a very useful resource during our research process as we were able to record all ‘ghostly’ documentaries that we saw and thought we be appropriate, record them and then watch them with the ability to pause and again discuss the ideas we had. New media technologies allow for a lot more audience feedback apposed to the conventional medias of newspapers and radio. For our planning we used lots of Web 2.0 technologies, (O’Reilly said that Web 2.0 means the technology is no longer linear but more interactive, 2004) for example a website called Blogger, where we stored all our ideas in a quick and easy assessable manner. In doing this allowed us again for more audience feedback and we could communicate and share ideas internally within the group when we weren’t actually together, before new media technologies were developed we would have found this more difficult to do. To create videos that we could also put onto our blogs that contained our ideas we used Windows Movie Maker, this is a simpler movie editor compared to Adobe Premiere and allows for basic transitions to be done and also cuts, this was ideal to contain lots of information in a quick and easy way to create that was interactive and interesting for the audience viewing it. After we created the videos we could upload them onto our blog or other Web 2.0 type sites such as Youtube. For our evaluation we wanted to get as much outside audience feedback as possible and so posted the video onto social networking sites such as Facebook for our friends to see and comment on and then again for a wider audience range I posted it on Youtube where the world would be able to comment and rate our video and possibly give us some constructive feedback which would help us evaluate and discuss if we were to do it again what we would do differently. Also we used software such as Microsoft word to write up our evaluation quickly and again making it very easy to change, we also recorded some with microphones making it more interactive for the audience.
New media technologies made it easier for us to complete the project, make the audience more engaged in the final projects as they have the ability to suggest their own ideas and improvements, new media technologies are more interactive than linear media products and so find themselves growing in popularity everyday and making the products that companies etc come up with bigger and better than before simply because there is more communication.

Article

This is the first draft of the writing we are putting onto the article, it was written by Craig.

Ghost Nutters
The Ghost Nutter’s says that the key to being a good ghost Nutter is being fearless! Do you have ghosts … who ya gunna call? Don’t be fooled by the un-intelligent approach and lack of scientific terms used, the Ghost Nutters are whole nut! They say “ We’ll nut it” TV show presenter Craig Wassell’s and celebrity medium Fiona Allen are more used to looking pretty and play up to their media image but they really seem to have stepped outside the box as they have defiantly got their hands dirty. Former models (Fiona and Craig) have really shocked their fans by stepping up to the challenge but the poor acting is more humorous then serious. However the genuinely terrifying parts of the show are more then entertaining. Also in the show Tom Jessop (camera man) and Steph Bowen as the historian. Both the characters have a degree in the specified field. (Both of them more disadvantaged by the celebrity helpers then actually helped so this might come in handy)! Fiona Allen is after VD! The former model come medium says the main objective is Visual Data, and by the looks of things she does attract “orbs” how she did it is beyond us but as she would say it is flying upwards! We are simply shocked by her spiritual capabilities as her out of breath presentational skills are talking to the audience skills obviously need some work! But we think that this is what makes her so lovable we are massive fans of Fee Fee’s over here at TV Goss. Craig Wassell who first found fame back in 2001 by reality TV show dream boy band’s has become the most successful member of the winning band who split just under a year after the show had finished. After a flop solo career he became the new face of top shop alongside celeb pal Kate Moss. We love that he has made yet another career change and turned into a Ghost Nutter (instead of your everyday Nutter). The lack of screen time is disappointing in the pilot episode as celeb Pal Fiona seams to be hogging the spot light. However I think we do smell the start of a national treasure? The location isn’t as derelict as we had originally hoped. We did expect a far worse conditions however the location is genuinely haunted according to local myth and is a great location (for a first episode)! We are hoping for more gunk and classical slapstick situations for our nation’s new super hero ghost hunters and we have been reassured by the shows producers that there’s are more yet to come. We normally would ask the celebrities to stick to their day jobs but after watching this we where just left wanting more! Good job Craig and Fiona and the rest of the team!

Research (Kris)

http://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/tft/client/user373/

This is a link to some information about Kris (who is an award-winning director), who we asked for filming advice before we started filming. As you can see from our interview in the video below, he gave us some helpful tips on engaging the audience, etc.

Health & Safety

Everyone in the media industry has to complete a health and safety record every time a bit of filming etc happens.

Our health & safety for the Old Queens Head is -

We had to analyse all the possible risks that could come of filming both in and outside the pub both in the day and at night. We could also look at the possible risks whilst traveling to the pub, going home and just general things we needed to be aware of during the whole day.

Also as part of health and safety were fire hazards. We had to know where the fire escape routes where and the quickest routes out of the pub. Also when we were walking around the room we took notes of where the fire extinguishers where. We all carried mobile phones with us so that in case of an emergency we could ring outside people.

Evaluation Questions

As part of an evaluation we are going to answer the following questions.
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?