Evaluation

For my media coursework, I have researched, planned and constructed a music magazine for a genre and target audience of my choice. I had to make 3 pages for the music magazine: a front cover, a contents page and a double-page article. After my first few weeks of research, I decided to make an indie music magazine, partly for personal interest in the genre and partly for finding a gap in the market for an indie magazine for a older teenage audience. This is my evaluation for my coursework.

Q1 - Who would the audience for your media product be?

For this question, I chose to use a prezi to present it. I chose a prezi because throughout my coursework, prezi has been my favourite new technology I've used because it is simple and easy to do but is still interesting to the viewer, as well as being good for getting the information across that you want to get across. I have also used different technologies within the prezi to make it more interesting, for example podcast voice overs on some of the slides. 

In this question, my prezi will discuss who my target audience are and the many reasons why they are my target audience.

Q2 - How did you attract/address your audience?

I chose to to a screen/voice record video for this question because it intrigued me as I had never done one before. I am glad I chose to answer this question this way because it will help me in the future if I need to make another video like this again and I also really enjoyed making it. 

One problem I had, however, when making it was I couldn't figure out how to make the app record my voice and the screen - I could only get it to record them separately. To overcome this problem, I looked on online tutorials on YouTube to help. I found out how to record both and that problem was solved. Another smaller issue I had was putting the clips together because I made them all different video files so it was more condensed. I figured this put with trial and error and just exploring different ideas I had.

Since getting teacher feedback on my evaluation, I have recently re-recorded this video and it is now easier to follow and understand.

In my answer to this question, I talk through how I attracted my audience and addressed my audience on each different page.

To view my script, click here.

Q3 - In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For this evaluation question, I chose to use Powtoon to explain my answer. I had never used Powtoon before but it intrigued me and made me want to use it because it was like a more complex version of GoAnimate. Instead of just automatic voice overs, you could add detailed text onto the animation and therefore make it more complex and detailed.

This was one of the first new technologies that I had no technical problems with. All the things I tried to do worked and worked well for answering this question. Because of this, I am planning to use Powtoon again to answer another evaluation question.

This answer is about how my product deals with conventions. Whether that is using them, developing them or challenging them.

Q4 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

For this evaluation question, at first I just made a podcast. However, feedback from my teacher suggested that I needed to add visual information to help show what I'm explaining and make it more interesting and informative. So I decided to use this advice and add visual.

I decided the best way to do this was keeping the original audio from the podcast and putting the pictures based on what I said. I decided to make different powerpoint slides of mainly images and some information and putting them over the audio on iMovie. I knew this would be the simplest and best way to do this because I did a similar thing when answering question 5, however with just music and no podcast explaining it. I think this worked really well because it meant I went into a lot of detail in my podcast and the new visual information just shows evidence for the answer I was explaining.

In this question, I go through the different ways I chose represent and don't represent certain social groups in my media product.

Alternatively click here to view my script.

Q5 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I decided to make a slide show video and upload it to Youtube for this question. I chose to do this because I had never done it before (which will help me to further achieve my first SMART target) as well as being an interesting way to do it. I had quite a few issues with making this half way though because of how I did it. 

I decided to put all of the information I wanted to include to answer this question on slides in a powerpoint because this way I could also include images and break up the text more to make it interesting. One issue I had was I wanted to put music on it from the genre of the magazine and I could not figure out how to do this. In the end I had to use another technology to add the music onto the powerpoint. I saved each powerpoint slide as separate images and then uploaded them to iMovie. I then inserted each picture for the amount of time it takes to read them (after timing it) and then added the music to this new file.

I then had another issue with is in the way that I couldn't figure out how to save the new video. Instead, I found how to upload it straight from that application and after some trial and error, managed to upload it.

Although it took me quite some time, I managed to successfully upload the video to Youtube and my blog and I think it was worth it to help overcome my SMART target and make an interesting answer to this question.

This answer is about which media institution would be appropriate for my magazine to be distributed by and why.

Q6 - What have you learnt about the technologies used in the process of constructing?

When I started to answer this question, I chose to do another screen record for a few reasons. Firstly, seen as I had used this form of media in question 2, I knew what to do and how to work it. And secondly, because I needed to show what different technologies, it would be a good way to show them.

The video allowed me to cut and chop the different video files so that they were in the order I wanted. At first, I found it difficult to do this because my iMovie wasn't working. I solved this problem by uploading the separate files to Youtube and then using the online Youtube editor so that I could put all the clips into one file. Also, the voice record feature was really useful for me to use to explain my answer.

In this video, I go through the different technologies I used during the construction process and why I used each of them.

Q7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

For this evaluation question, I wanted to go back and use another technology I had used in a previous question. I chose to use Powtoon, the free animation website that I used to answer question 3.

I wanted to use this one more time because I really enjoyed it last time and I thought it would be good to use to answer this question because I could write a lot to explain each slide and each thing I wanted to answer the question. Also, during making this Powtoon presentation, I realised it was a good way to show and explain different photographs.

In this presentation, I answer how I have improved from my initial preliminary task and what it is I did to improve.