This is the evaluation section for the DVD cover. we created this DVD cover with inspiration from many sources. In our response, we have to answer 4 questions, these are;

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.


• How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary texts.


• What have you learned from your audience feedback.


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

The first question is "In what ways does your product, use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?". Our text follows a lot of forms and conventions of real media products. Our DVD cover has quite a standard design and used a common layout. The text at the top of the page "Debut promo pack" uses a convention that DVD covers have a small amount of text at the top of the page. This can be seen in our DVD cover research. We changed the text that we put at the top of the page to suit the promotional package we are creating. Many bands have text such as their album name, or newly released, something along those lines, we chose to put debut promo pack as it is showing that the band is just debuting, and that it is the first time that they have produced, or been part of a project like this. The colour used on the text in the whole of the text is white, and the back ground black. This is a common form of rock music covers as black is a signifier of rock music, and the white contrasts the black well and makes the writing stand out and makes it more legible to read. We used the same font as the rest of the texts as it creates the recurring theme, once again, which our audience will look for. Recurring themes are important in text like this as an audience, who hasn't heard of the band, as they are a new debuting band, wouldn't neccasarily make the link between the three texts if they didn't recognise the recurring themes. We used the font "ALPACA54" on all our texts. We like this font as it is a clear ledgible font, something which is important in a text such as this so our audience can read what is on the texts, and it also has detail on the first letter of the words "Stentorian", "The" and "Unseen". We feel this is a good thing to have on the font as it offers more of a dynamic part of our text, as it stands out slightly more from the rest of the text, so it will catch our audiences eye, and then that will persuade them to maybe look the band up, buy our products, or in the case of a record company, they may look at the promotional package, which could lead to potential record deals etc. The main image on the front of the DVD cover is very important. From our research we noticed that a large majority of our audience said that they liked the union jack on The Who's DVD cover in our questionnaire. Following this feedback we decided that we would use this Stentorian logo (Which they gave us permission to use) as a main part of our DVD cover. We feel this also represents the bands national image as they are a British band, so having a union jack as part of their logo, and subsequent promo package, is a strong representation of their pride in the country they live in etc. We believe that our audience respond well to the union jack being on the front of the DVD cover as they are all of British origin, this is because we find it hard to find people close enough to be able to fill the questionnaire in. We did try putting some questions on a questionnaire website, but no responses were recieved. This therefore represents the national identity of our audience. The font used in the logo was originally used by the band Stentorian themselves, but it does work well with our production. The font we decided to use is different to the font they used, this makes their font stand out against ours, and our font against theirs, so this makes the important information like the band name stand out against the rest of the text. We used the filter again over this picture as we were experimenting with the filter, and we feel it offered really creative and interesting results. We then decided to keep the filter as it gave the flag a more rugged, old and ripped look. This is a representation of our band as their genre, is the older, classic rock/prog genre, so having an older looking flag shows that the band are into older styles of music. The rugged, rustic look of the flag makes it look more like a natural process has happened to the flag, something which many rock bands like to put accross as their band image, as it makes the music flow easier and makes the band look more natural on set, as if they have matured together as a band, as grown together as a band. We feathered the edge of the image as it helps the image blend and sit on the page more effectively for more aesthetic appeal. This is important for a text like this as we are trying to appeal and reach out to an R&R department, who recieve a lot of products like this, so it needs to stand out against the rest of them, so having a aesthetic appeal is very important. The two official symbols we used for our DVD cover are the PG symbol, and the DVD logo. We got these by using a specially developed free source font, which has official DVD production symbols and age ratings included. We felt it neccasary to include these on our production in order to achieve professional results. The qoute on the front of the DVD cover is a code and convention of DVD cover design as many music DVD's have them, as well as many other types of DVD covers. We decided to include this as it is a code and convention of DVD covers, and it offers a more professional look to our DVD cover. We used the font "ALPACA54" as it is a recurring font, and it is very ledigle to read on the cover. Having the qoute on the front of the cover makes our text look more professional as many DVD covers have them, it also makes it look as if major magazine's of the music magazine industry have viewed the music, and given it, in an old music term ,the grey whistle test. This would attract our audience as they will be more willing to look the band up, maybe even buy some of their music, as they have been given an all clear by a major magazine. After putting a qoute at the bottom of the front page of the DVD cover, we decided to put one at the top of the back page too. This was to create the same response to the qoute on the front page, to attract our audience to our text, and sebsequently to the band as they have been given acceptance by a major magazine, which would suggest that they are a talanted and professional band. The spine of the DVD cover uses many codes and conventions of DVD covers. We again have used the cover developer font to create the DVD logo and the compact digital disk logo too. We included these on our DVD cover spine as we saw many DVD's which use these on their spine. This is a basic code and convention of DVD covers , which we must use in order to create a professional looking product. Along the spine, above the text "Stentorian" we decided to include the same logo we used on the front of the DVD cover. This was so that if the DVD was on it's side in a shelf, with the spine facing out, the audience would still be able to recognise the bands logo, and therefore pick it up, and maybe buy the DVD. We also included it as it looks attractive at the top of the text, and it add's more bulk and content to the blank space which could have been left there by not having the logo. This is a code and convention of DVD cover design as many bands and films have a logo or something which is at the top of the spine on the corresponding DVD cover. Having the text down the side of the spine is also a widely used code and convention of DVD cover design. This is largely to do with letting the audience know that it is the band or film in the DVD cover. In this case, we are advertising the band, Stentorian, who allowed us to base this project on them. We used the font "ALPACA54" again. This is again to create the recurring theme with the three of our texts, but also, if we used different fonts within the same text, for similar things, it would look very silly. The font allows us to achieve dynamic text, with small detail on the first letter in the word. This helps the text stand out against the rest of the page as it draws attention to the first letter of the word, which then makes the audience of our product read the rest of the word, naturally, and then they may scan over the rest of the text and may be influenced by the text to buy it. We used white writing so the text stood out from the rest of the product. This is another code and convention of DVD cover design, something which is very important to do in the design of our DVD cover. The back page is a good example of how we can develop and challenge media forms and conventions in an order to create a productive and imaginative product. On the back we decided to put a track listing in order to follow som codes and conventions of DVD cover design. This is so that our audience still recognise the product as a DVD cover, and they can also view what content is on the DVD they are purchasing. Again the font is "ALPACA54", used so we can create an intertextual theme. This font is also very good for having a neat and tidy, yet no borin text within the DVD cover design. We split the track listing onto 2 disks. This is so we could have more content for the DVD. As this DVD is part of a promotional package, we felt it would be a good idea to have the promo video on a disk by itself. we decided to do this as it is a diferent type of media from the songs, and uses quite a lot of memoy space up. On the second disk we decided to include the debut album of the band. We included the 3 songs featured on the promo video, as well as 5 songs which the band have recorded, which include their own original music, as well as covers of artists such as Jose Gonzales and Mastodon, two artists mentioned as inspirations in the promo video. The text has been centralised on the track listing to make it more aethetically appealing. This is a very common code and convention of DVD cover design, something which we have seen lots in real media products. We decided to surround the track with images of the members of the band. We used the best images we had, which we tried to make different from the images we used on the other products. The top right image is of the lead singer, Adam Campbell. This image uses a lot of iconography so the audience of our products can build up an understanding of the text, without even knowing about it. Iconography is a form and convention of media products as everything which is used in the shot is iconographic of something, I.E. a guitar is iconographic of rock music, a gun is iconographic of organised crime, or crime. Iconography is therefore very important in images as otherwise it would just be an image of a guy, in a room, which doesn't really mean anything in relation to rock music. Example of iconography in this shot are the bass amp in the background of the image. This is a fine example of iconography as it is something very much associated with rock music, having a loud amp, so having this in the image helps the audience build up the understanding that this is a rock band. Due to bad quality of the image uploaded on our blog, it is difficult to see the microphone which Adam is swinging. This is a typical thing which a lead singer/front man will do, as it is a sign of confidence, and also a sign that he is enjoying himself, as well as being iconic in itself to rock music, after great artists such as Robert Plant did it in the 70's. Even though you cannot see the microphone, you can see the chord which it is attached to, something which is still iconic of rock music, as the cable is something which all musicians who play electric music need, so having these in the shot shows that they are rock musicians. He is swinging the mic as part of the iconic rock pose which he is pulling, I.E the wide stance with the body angle as if he is head banging and swinging the mic around. This shot was taken at the bands practise studio, so there is sofa's in the background, which we feel add a certain amount of iconography as it shows that they sit down, and write music together all in a group. We decided to use a low angle shot to create a feeling that Adam is dominant over the audience, as he is the lead singer, he has quite a lot of control over the crowd, or at least more so than the rest of the band. The top left image is of lead guitarist Ben Harris. This is again a very iconographic image, even more so than that of the lead singer. This image features Ben, in a slightly low angle image, making him look dominant, standing strait onto the camera, playing his guitar, and looking as if he is alternate picking a heavy riff. This is iconic of rock music as alternate picking is a very common style of playing guitar for rock music, and the way he is standing strait onto the camera is sending out a challenge to the audience of the text the beat him. He is presenting himself as a target to beat, a challenge to the audience. This is iconic of rock music as it is often seen as being aggressive and confrontational, something which is being represented very strongly in this image. Ben is holding his Dean LesPaul limited edition guitar. This shape of guitar is very common, many great guitarists such as Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and alike used Gibson Les Pauls, so Ben having a similar guitar will attract our audience as they are nice sounding guitars, and they represent a whole era of classic rock and prog, which a lot of our audience will want in a new rock band. He also has his amp in the image. This is a strong representation of rock music as all rock musicians have an amp, it is a standard piece of equipment, so our audience can relate to this, as well as recognise that the musician in playing live music. The bottom left image is of the rhythm guitarist, Mike Gaines. This image again uses mise-en-scene and iconography to build up an understanding in the audiences mind of what the producers of the text (us) are trying to make them understand through the production of this text. We have Mike, in non-branded clothes, with a low angle shot, making him look over powering and dominant, playing guitar and doing what he likes to do, and does best. He has a Gibsone Thunderbird guitar, something which is very iconic of rock music, and something which we both feel works really well in this image. He again has the bass amp at the back of the image, his amp cannot be seen in this image. The bass amp however still does offer some iconographic value, as it is still an amp, plus it suggests there are other musicians just outside of the shot, so it shows that they are working together as a unit, and functioning to produce the best music they can. Mike's stance is again an iconic rock stance as he is wide footed, and looks as if he is rocking from the front foot the back foot, or bending over slightly, and head banging, which are both icons of the rock music. The bottom right hand image is of the bass player Dan Linehan. This image is very good at looking at basic elements in images, to build up an effective image to use in a media production.It uses a low angle shot, which makes Dan look intimidating, something which is a very common code and convention of rock music images.The bass is the subject of the image in this image. He uses a Warwick Corvette bass, which is a very nice bass, which draws attention to itself in the image. This is important in rock images as the iconography is again very important. The bass amp in the background is also iconographic as it helps the user distinguish that this is a rock band DVD, so if they are into rock music, they are more likely to spot, and potentially buy it. In this image, Dan's stance, like the others is as if he is head banging. This is a common thing to do when you are 'rocking out' so this will attract our audience as they will be able to relate to the band doing this. The rest of the DVD cover is very much there to make it look more official and professional. The first thing that does that is the solid bar which goes underneath the track listing, and above the rest of the content on the back of the DVD cover. The first part of the official information is the information about the DVD. This information was gathered off the back of a real DVD, it covers things like aspect ratio, disk format and region(s) it is compatible in. This is a code and convention of DVD cover design as it is necessary to have this information on a real DVD, so in designing one, we felt it was important to include information such as what is in the grid. We didn't use "ALPACA54" for this part of the blog. We decided against using that font as it didn't look professional or neat enough using that font, so we decided to go with Arial. This font was chosen as it is neat, but not as boring fonts like Times New Roman, which wouldn't look good on a DVD cover anyway. The symbols next to this, above the age rating, apart from the Stentorian logo are from the disk maker font. This font helped us make a very professional looking text, which we are very happy with. These logo's are used to make our text look professional and realistic,as if they were actually going to be sent off to be looked at by an R&R department. The Stentorian logo was used as we are using it as a logo for their own recording studio. This is a basic studio which is at their practise room. The album wasn't recorded at this studio, but the studio which they recorded at wouldn't allow us use of their logo, so we used the Stentorian logo to represent their 'record company'. The age rating on the blog was used with the disk makers font. I made it by making 3 texts boxes. We placed the age rating in one, the text "suitable for all the family in one" and "Parental guidance advised" in the other. We then positioned these in their appropriate positions in order for them to fit right on the page. We decided to produce that this way as it was proving difficult to align the text properly with the symbol using just one text box. This is a code and convention of DVD covers as they all have a section on the back stating or explaining what the age ratings mean. The bar code was produced using a font which produces bar codes. This is a code and convention of DVD cover design as all DVD's manufacturers make, they intend to sell, which they cannot do without a bar code, we also put it on the page as it would look silly without it. The two sections of text at the bottom are from the bottom of a DVD cover which we analysed. We decided to put these at the bottom of the page as it looks professional, but it also fills a lot of empty space at the bottom of the page. We used Arial again as it is neater. Having this writing at the bottom of the cover design in a code and convention of DVD cover design as it is a professional thing which professional designers include.

The second question we had to answer was "How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary texts?" We both feel that our website and DVD cover work really well together, and our music promo video, doesn't work as well as it could have done. The website and DVD cover follow the same theme, this is mainly due to us having complete control over the content, and had complete control over what we did, where as with the promo video, we were limited by the practises that the band were doing on the day of filming and the songs they allowed us to use, which turned out to be opposites to each other. For example, both the website and DVD cover have darker, more stereotypical rock conventions, such as the black background with white writing, the creative fonts and the images with instruments. With those three example alone, an audience could make an educated and accurate assumption that they are looking at something to do with rock, without even having to look at instruments and iconography in images. This is extremely important as it is very important to establish an immediate connection with our audience, and then start attracting them to our texts using aesthetic appeal and content. So, in conjunction with my website we feel that our DVD cover does this really well. Our promo video however is not as successful at this, something which we expand upon in the music promo video analysis page. Our DVD cover offers dynamic, smooth and professional results. We both agree that we still think all 3 work well together, we just feel that the website and DVD cover work best together. We also found these products easier to produce. This is because we had never produced a piece of work like a promo video before, so it was a new challenge to us, whereas we both have history in either web design or DVD cover design, we felt a lot more comfortable producing these texts, which we feel reflects in the quality of work we produced for these texts. With further development we both feel that our texts could work much more dynamically together. For example, our website could have an online store where you can buy the DVD promotional package, as well as stream live footage, and the promo video. On the DVD you could have an exclusive promotional code, which when entered into a new section on the website automatically enters you into a competition of some sort. The website in particular could be developed further using interactive and user orientated controls, as they are the best ways of getting an audience to return to the products, we could even develop the website to have a scroll over, over the image so when it is scrolled over, a video of the band member playing live footage plays, a solo for example.

The third question we were asked to answer was "What have you learned from your audience feedback?". In order to complete this question we had to create a post production questionnaire, and give it out to the same audience that completed our original questionnaire. From these results we can make some accurate assumptions about what we did well, and what we did wrong, and how we can improve on a project like this if we were to do one in the future. The first question we asked on the questionnaire was "How does our DVD cover compare to your favourite artist's?". The response to this was largely negative 60% giving a positive review, and 10% saying they felt it was really good. From this we can gather that we did a reasonably good job in the production of our DVD cover, but still have room to improve upon our design if we wish to achieve truly professional results. All in all, for this first question we are satisfied and pleased with this result. The second question we asked was "Does our cover capture your eye?". The same 60% as last time gave a positive review, and the same 40% suggested that there is room for improvement in our texts. This is a good reflection of the feedback we received from the first question. We again feel that we could develop this cover more, tidy up the edges etc to make it look more like a true professional piece of work, but we are still very pleased with the results we have achieved. The third question was "What didn't you like about our DVD cover?". We felt this was a very important question as it is a lot easier to point out why you don't like something, rather than why you do like something, so having this question helps us get strait to the point. 20% said that they felt that the DVD cover looked unprofessional because it was cramped, which is something which we do not agree with as we followed codes and conventions of real media products. If the cover wasn't as cramped blank space would have been left on the page, which would have made the text look even more unprofessional. Although we do not agree with this result, we accept it and, if we were to produce another text similar we would take this into consideration. 40% also said that they would have used better images, one of our interviewees pointed out that he would have used studio shots, from a real recording studio rather than the practise studio as it looks like it is a bunch of teenagers who aren't in a proper band, which to a degree the band are, but they are more serious than that. 40% said they wouldn't change anything. This may be to do with the fact that they haven't designed a DVD cover before, so don't want to comment, or they feel that they do like the DVD cover enough that they wouldn't change anything on it. We have found this feedback very valuable as we know exactly where our audience feels we went wrong, and could have improved, which is something we have learned that is of true importance when producing a similar text again. The fourth question we asked was "How would you improve our DVD cover?". This is again an important question as it highlights the elements of our product which our audience really do not like. Again, 20% said that they would have made it less cramped, whether that would be by including less content, or cropping images more, was not stated, but it is something we definately need to consider if we were to produce a text like this again. 30% said that they would use a better image on the front, which shows us we need to concentrate on the photography and filming part of the production and not rush things too much, and 30% also said that they would have put more blurb on the back of the DVD cover. We feel that having blurb instead of a track listing on a text like this would have been a mistake, so we think that this would come in handy if we were producing a different kind of product. The fifth question we asked was "Does our DVD cover deliver the feel of a rock music DVD cover?". 70% of our audience said yes, which we have taken as a huge positive as that was one of our main aims, to make sure our product targeted the right people. We feel that due to 30% saying now, we could have maybe had more to represent rock music, but all in all, we feel that we did well in producing a product which does reach out to the audience we are trying to make contact with. The 6th question we asked was "What features did you like best about our DVD cover?". We felt like asking this question to find out what we did really well, and what we feel we have achieved in producing this text. 40% said that they especially liked the torn look on the flag using the filter. We feel that in using this filter in this product we have boosted our products chances of people successful a lot. 60% said that they liked the way the images were placed around the track listing. We are happy with this as we weren't too sure whether it would work or not, so this is a major positive for us. 20% said that they liked the track listing and blurb, which we assume is the same thing, which is again, something positive and we are glad that this feedback has come back so positively. The 7th question we asked was "Do you feel we took into consideration what you said on the preproduction questionnaire?". 80% of our audience said yes. This is also a massive positive as it shows that we listen to the audience well and produce texts which have more of a chance of surviving as we listen to what the audience want, so can change and be dynamic with what the audience want. The 8th and final question we asked was "If this DVD cover was part of a promotional package, would you be affected positively by it?". The majority of our audience would have been affected by it positively as 60% said that they would. This shows that the production does what it is designed to do, attract the audience and make money. Although we have 40% which don't feel they would be our original research concluded that 30% didn't like rock music anyway, so it only really leaves 10% rock funs, unaffected by it.

The fourth question was "How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?". We used lots of media technology in the construction stage of our production. We used computer programs such as Serif Page Plus and paint to help create and make our products into images. We used Page Plus as it allowed us to achieve professional results with an easy to use package, something which we needed in order to achieve a decent looking promotional package. We used paint to take screen shots of images, crop them down and then save them as JPEG files, in order to upload them to blogger. In the research stage of our project, we used software such as word processing packages to display and store DVD covers which we looked at. We used Internet browsing software in our planning and we used blogger in our evaluation.