Wednesday 7 December 2011

Music Video Evaluation

1. In what ways does it develop, challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I feel that our video challenges a lot of the conventions of a usual music video, a lot of artists try to show off their glamour and fame whereas we decided to not take our selves too seriously. A lot of the videos we analysed for example Rizzle Kicks involved some humor which is not always in the big videos so this this also challenged some conventions and we thought we'd try and incorporate this as well, also as our band falls into the same sort of genre.
A lot of our shots were quite random and this usually is not a usual convention in real music videos as videos generally show the story line of the song incorporates the lyrics quite literally, so this relates to Goodwins points of visuals and lyrics, another typical example of this is lip sycning and generally all the words are lipsynced and we decided against this and went to go straight for visual and music,  showing instruments and the band whistling to the song also we edited a lot of our shots to cut on the beat, this works really affectively as it makes the viewer really get into and expect the next humorous shot.
voyeurism was also a good point in our video, we wore very similar clothing to each other and also to other artists of our genre., this helped to show that the artist was modern and people can relate to the artist.

2. How effective is the combination of our main product and our ancillary texts?
In our video, digipack and magazine poster work quite well in conjunction with one another. All the images on the digipack and poster are taken form the video and they are all good shots that fit nicely together. I think that would work well together. I think that would work well in selling our product, because if someone saw the poster and wanted to look for the digipack they would find it easily, due to the similar design.
I think the design is very professional, so this could give off a good impression to the buyer. Our digipack and poster can almost give of a false image of the artist and this is also breaking conventions of a usual digipack as it is quite ironic and may not be selling the artist for what they are, or how we portrayed them. All three of our products would be good at attracting the target audience, and more, as from the seriousness of the poster to the fun filled shots of the video.
all the images help to create an image of an of the artist, in the case of ours we make the band seem quite quirky and different to other artists around at the moment, as shown in our video we made the song very fun and very different to a lot of different artists around.

3. What have learnt from the audience feedback?
We have received a lot of feedback from all three of our products, and generally they where all quite good on a our first ideas and rough cuts. Our digipack started of slowly and we changed ideas on more than one occasion with our teachers helping us in the right direction, and finally i think we ended up with a good product that got good feedback from everyone that saw it.
When we finished our rough cut, we showed it to our class and teacher and the only bad feedback we got was that we didn't have enough lipsycning, so we went out learnt more lyrics and then added it in, we than took more advanced shots and made all of our video better as the start wasn't as advanced as our ending was so we improved this and it was shown in our feedback after our final cut.
From our feedback we think we need to tone it down on the randomness and maybe needed to add more shot such as instruments, so we did adding the high hat and the other drums made it really affective and timed remarkably well

4. How did you use media technologies in constitution, research, planning and our evaluation stage?
 To make all three of our products we used, photoshop and Final cut express, we got used to both these programs quite quickly, mostly Final cut as we have used it before last year for coursework and for our preliminary. Some of the things we used in Final cut that we may not have used before was the split screen, this looked very effective in our final cut, I am proud of it and it makes it look very professional and advanced. Also we used colour corrector, i used this on the blue and red flashing lights of the police car and it looks very effective, although it took a long time it worked out a lot better than I even hoped. To research we used Youtube using safari, this was very helpful for ideas for the band (watching other of their videos and also looking at similar artists videos. We used blogger to put our ideas on and our diary etc.

Music Video Evaluation

How effectively is the combination of your media product and ancillary texts?
 I think that our media product and our ancillary products work really well together, in our media our favourite type of editing was using the splitscreen effect for the whistles. We used this same feature on our DVD cover and promotion poster, splitting different pictures up. The pictures used in both the poster and the DVD cover are stills from our music video. We also used the same font on both of the ancillary products to get the same feeling throughout our digipack. Our reasons for using the softening of the images and the black background was to make our DVD cover easily recogniseable if you had seen the poster beforehand. The pictures were picked for a reason, the reason being that the band we choose; "Everything Everything" are a very random and odd band, although they are slightly different from the DVD case and the poster they do both have the same feel about them so this works really well. The lyrics were very unusual so i felt that by using random images it tied in with the band really well. The four band members don't feature on the DVD cover or the poster, as i think they are quite a mysterious band and aren't all about the publicity so we didn't use them on the ancillary products.

In what ways does your media product use, develope or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We followed Goodwins theory in the making process of our music video, firstly the clothes that we wore really suited the genre which was Indie, we wore clothes such as jumpers, cardigans, chinos, large coats.. etc. By wearing the same sort of clothes it sells the artists quite well as it makes them look really like a band, we also tried to give each band member their own unique personality, however im not sure that we did this to the best of our ability, we also didn't really have a lead singer in the video and this is something we would look to improve given more time. Our video features lots of shots of a rural area with plenty of people moving round, this suited the song as its a very fast and pacey song, we also used this to show happiness and a certain amount of love between the band members which worked really well in terms of selling the artist. There was only one piece of intertextuality in our video and it was the symbol, we didn't really want to include a massive amount of brands in our video as Indie music is quite untainted by the major brands and makes so we tried to continue this theme throughout our video. One of the major conventions is how the lyrics and the video fits together, we used very random shots in the video and cut on the beat to make it fit in well with the pacey song. We used close-ups, longshots, wideshots, high and low angle shots. We also used zooming in and out effectively. My favourite piece of editing is the bit with the 4 telephone boxes where we filmed 4 different clips of each of the band members in different telephone boxes and we came out of them and went back in, this looked really good we came to editing it together. The lyrics we had didn't really offer us a narrative so we did just use random shots but i think this looked really good in the end.

What have you learnt from the audience feedback?
In all 3 stages of our work we were given feedback by our peers in the class, we always tried to listen to what the class had to say about our work as the class are in our target audience so their opinion definitely matters. The feedback from our class was really appreciated and although they thought that we needed to add a bit more commitment to the singing as they thought the words were too fast for the effort on the faces of the singers. They also thought that some of the shots were a bit shakey but i think that the reason for our shots being shakey was so that it looked like the band mates were just having a good time so we removed some poorly placed shakey shots but did leave some in as we really thought they worked. I think that the feedback was really useful as it allowed us to correct some errors that we had not been able to pick up on due to us being slightly biased towards our own work. One piece of feedback was that the telephone box shot was too long, the reason for the length of the telephone box shot was because we felt that the piece of music didnt have any lyrics for around 30 seconds and it was a very slow beat so we didnt want to cut in loads of shots so instead we just put one base shot up to play throughout the sequence. When making our ancillary products we recieved feedback from our teachers, they told us how they thought that we should keep the splitscreen theme running through the ancillary products as the splitscreens are the main features of our video. We listened to this as we knew they had more of an idea about what needed to be in our digipack than we did.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
For the construction process of our media video we used FinalCutPro on the Macbooks at college, this programme was really good and suited our level of editing ability, there are more advanced programmes but i think it would take us too long to figure out how to use it and we wouldn't actually be able to create work as good as the work we have now. To get the footage for our music video we used HD cameras, these were a big improvement on the non-HD cameras we had used previously in AS. We did write to Everything Everything on their Facebook page and they sent us a reply telling us to watch a video where they discuss their album and talk about each song indepth, including Schoolin', this was really helpful during the research stage. We also reviewed Rizzle Kicks as we thought they were quite a hip indie/rap band, we screen grabbed the image of their album cover and we then reviewed it on Blogger.
Finally we used Blogger to record all of the feedback we recieved from our class mates, it was a really good place in which to type it up.
When making our ancillary products we found using Abode Photoshop was quite difficult as we had been only using Final Cut express before hand for a very long period of time so switching onto a new programme which we all knew relatively little about was quite challenging. We did eventually get used to using it and produced our DVD and poster to a standard which we thought was quite good.

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Music Video Evaluation

How effectively is the combination of your media product and ancillary texts?
Both our music video and our ancillary texts (magisine advertisment and DVD case cover) reflected each other very effectibely. We felt the best parts of our music video were our split screen effects, which we used throughout. Because of this we felt it wwas necessary to copy this idea across onto our ancillary texts. In this way, our video and ancillary texts all fit as a combination very effectively. Our DVD case and magasine advert both make use of the same photos (stills from our music video). They also use similar photo editing; softened sides of photos above a black background. We have also used the same font on both the DVD case and magasine advert. This was to maximise our digipacks strength, we understood that if you were to see our music video, you would recognise the editing types, and images on both our magasine advert, and our DVD case. This also meant that if you were to see the magasine advert, you could easily find the DVD in a shop, for purchase. In these ways, with uses of similar images, similar editing techniques and colours, our media product and ancillary texts are very effective, as a combination.
These images we used on our DVD case cover and our magasine advert are very random shots. This relates to the Artist 'Everything Everything' as they are a very quirky, lively and strange band, using new and imaginitve sounds in their songs. Also, the song we chose to create a music video for offered little narrative in the lyrics, so we reflected this across our digipack. We did not show images of the band members on our ancillary texts to leave the target audience guessing.

In what ways does your media product use, develope or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media video followed many of Goodwins points of analysis. We tried to give each character in the group a different identity, or personality, so that our 'fans' could relate to each individual member of the band at different times. We did this by filming each band member individually doing different things, according to their character trait, then we filmed the whole band in some shots. In this way we sell the artist very well, also with uses of instruments and lip synching. We met genre characterisitcs with uses of indie clothing (chinos, cardigens etc.) We also filmed a lot of rustic, authentic shots of animals, plants and every day life people, or our audince can easily relate to, something we felt was very important. We feel the genre 'indie' is very honest, and minimalist when it comes to expenses, so we didn't make use of expensive brands in our videos; modesty was a key feature throughout our video. We also felt our song was very jolly and up beat so we filmed our group having a good time together, with alot of smiling to help portray the songs feelings. We found it hard to get any intertextuality into our video as the lyrics were very strange, however we managed to film a shot of the Symbol used in the drum kit, also some shots of our branded shoes were filmed. However we understand that minimal use of product placement and intertextuality is a characteristic of our genre. Visuals and lyrics we found very hard to shoot, however we found a sword we could film when 'scimitar' appears in the lyrics. As our lyrics were very random we reflected that in our video, and used strange, random and simple shots throughout, making uses of close-ups, zooms and long shots, also low angles and high angles. Like many other professional media products, we edited in similar ways, making use of the heavy beat of the song to cut to the beat, using fades and split screens also, meeting music and visuals, another one of goodwins points of analysis. Our ancillary products took inspiration from similar atrists.
We challenged conventions of real media products by not making great use of lyrics in our video, this was because the lyrics were both fast, and random. Therefore offered no narrative, and were difficult to film lip synching. However we got more familiar with our lyrics towards the end of our project and managed to film more shots, further selling the artists, and individuals in the band.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and resaerch, planning and evaluation stages?
We did a lot of research on the new Macbooks at college, using Safari to view videos on Youtube about similar artists and interviews with our artist 'Everything Everything'. during our research stages we created a magasine advert for Nikki Minage, and found this very dificult. Becuase of this we decided we should give ourself more time to spend on our ancillary texts, as Photoshop was a new media technology to us, however it soon became second nature, much like Final cut, which we edited our music video on. We blogged a diary onto Bloggers.com every lesson, and added our research onto this site too. Bloggers we found very helpful to write up the progression throughout our researching time, as the layout makes it easy to back reference and find previous work which we can relate to. Photoshop is very technical, with uses of terms and effects which took me and my group a few lessons to get to grips with. We had an initial idea to put each member of our band onto the DVD cover, however we felt it looked tacky, with uses of fades and cropping. So instead we decided to create a split screen effect with still shots of our video onto it, linking the DVD cover and the music video very effectively. We then decided that the magasine advert should feature the same effects and photos, so the editing of this wasn't such a challenge. We had been uising final cut express since the first year at college so we were quite practiced at this, with uses of fades and other transitions, and how to cut and crop certain clips which we filmed. Because we were practiced at this we didn't spend too long on the editing process of our video, and moved onto our ancillary texts. Evalutating our media product and our ancillary texts proved very simple with the easy use of back tracking work, and checking previously posted items. Bloggers helped us in this way very effectively.

What have you learn from your audience feedback?
We took our audience feedback very professionally and seeked to change any initial problems as quickly as possible. We were told we hadn't focussed on enough lip syncing, so we went out and filmed more to edit back into the video. We were also told we had a lot of shakey shots, so we edited these out and replaced them with better, more appropriate shots (however here we felt some shot variation was important so kept in some 'shakey' shots) Of course our feedback wasn't all negative; we were praised on our shot varieties and use of animals, so much so that we decided to edit in more shots of the 'swans' which were so greatly appreciated. We found our audience feedback was hugely important, as our target audience are people of our age. The genre of the song we chose is 'indie pop', mostly appreciated by people of our age. Because of this we tried take into account all of the feedback given, and generally improve our editing techniques to please our target audience, with uses of more split screens and things which appeal to our audience. Our feedback we thought was very good, in general, aswell as very helpful to us. We feel that without the feedback that we recieved our music video will have been of a much lower standard, with less strong editing towards the beginning of the video which we were unsure about. Our pitch feedback seemed to be questions which we had not answered in our original pitch. Our peers asked which locations we would be using, and advised us not to film too late due to a lack of lighting in the centre of town. They also asked us if we will be showing uses of instruments; we suggested that we could film us on a guitar, however this did not work out so we had to use a drum instead. We also had an initial idea to put a sepia style colour correction on the video to give it an 'authentic' look, however this too didn't work out as it didn't match our video message of the band having a good time, a 'feel good' idea we wanted to portray. Our rough cut was critisized on not enough lip synching so we took this on board and concentrated on learning lyrics, and getting timing right to make it look as professional as possible. We were also told that there was little narrative, however this is a point we wanted to elaborate on, as our lyrics didn't offer much narrative aswell. Our teacher suggested we should give each band character a different personality, so that each band member could have their own 'fans', as it were. We did this by filming each band member separately, then as a group, to give a well rounded view of each band member.

Music Video Evaluation

In what ways does your music video develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

I feel that our music video was very good a meeting the conventions of music video but there were also times when we challenged them as well. It especially met Goodwin's point of analysis but also challenged some other music videos of the same genre.

Firstly, it does have some good visuals and music in my video. We made sure that all the shots cut on the beat and that the duration of some clips matches how quickly the the music is playing. This ensured that the video is easy to watch and helps the viewers to watch the video as it flows well. We also made sure that the video sold the artist. We did this in a number of ways by showing the artists, singing, playing instruments and having fun. this meant that the viewers would be able to connect with each individual character. We tried to make all the different members of the group have a different character so that the audience can relate to them easier.

Another way in which we sold the artist, and another of Goodwin's points, was by using voyeurism. The main way in which we used voyeurism min this video was what the artists were wearing. We all made sure that we wore similar clothes in the music video so that the audience can see that we are a group. This also helped to show that the artist was modern and this meant that are target audience could relate better to them. Because of the clothes we were wearing we also had included some intertextuality into our video as we were wearing clothes from places like top man and Jack and Jones.

We also followed Goodwin's point of genre characteristics. Our videos genre was indie/hip-hop. we found that the song was very fast and upbeat so we tried to show this in our video by making the shots fast and making the footage fun and enjoyable to watch. However, one of Goodwin's points which we couldn't follow very well was music and lyrics. We found it very hard to do this as the lyrics were so random and didn't really have a narrative. This is why we decided to make the video have random shots of lots of different things which were in our location (Cambridge). There was some lyrics that matched and that was the whistling scenes. we made sure that we made the match as well as we could.

How effective is the combination of the main product and the ancillary tasks?

We wanted to make sure that our music video, digipack and poster all had a link between that all so that the target audience can easily see that link between them. We feel that we did this successfully and that was because we used our split screen style throughout the entire project. this therefore, meant that the ancillary task would stand out and they would be more eye catching. This also helped to sell the artist as the audience can easily see that link between each product.

These three products also helped to create an image of the artist. i  this case it shows how we are fun and a bit different to other artist in this genre. we did this by not showing the artist directly and just showing the name of the artist with randoms clips from our video on our ancillary tasks. Throughout our video we kept using the split screen effect especially on the whistling clips to break up the footage and make it more interesting and advanced. this is why we decided to use this on our digipack and poster as well. because we had a black background in our video with the images over it we decided to do this on the ancillary tasks as well so that they stand our from others.

What have you learnt from the audience feedback?

Whilst designing, making and editing this music video i have received a lot of feedback from my other peers and from teachers. I feel that this has helped me learn a lot and has helped know what I needed to improve and change in the actual video. Firstly, in the initial pitch we were asked a few questions by our other classmates and this helped us come up with some baseline ideas for our video. Firstly we were asked where we were gonna film or video and this is when we decided to film in Cambridge. They also asked if we are going to included any instruments which made us realise that it would be good to include some shots of us playing the drums as this was a main instrument in the song. Finally we were asked if we would use any effects in our video which was when we thought about using fades and quick cuts.

We then made our first cut, our rough cut, and got feedback from this too. This was probably the most important feedback as it really made us think about how we needed to improve it and what we needed to improve. The main feedback that we received was that we needed to include more shots of us actually singing. Obviously this is one of the key elements of a music video and a key part of selling the artist so we realised we had to go and film more of us singing. We were also told that some of our shots are slightly contrast with the colours and some are too random. So we decided to smoothen up some shots using colour correcter and we also took out some of the more random shots.

After we had finished these changes we showed our final cut to our peers. The main feedback that we got was that the video matched the mood of the song as it was fast paced and this meant it was fun and enjoyable to watch. People said that they really liked the effect of the split screens we used as it helped brake up some shots which would otherwise be fairly long winded and boring. They also said that even though we didn't have any real narrative it still worked because the song also didn't have a narrative. One thing that we wished we could have improved is that some of our shots weren't colour corrected as well as we had hopped. Even though we included more singing than in our rough cut some people still thought that we should have include more than we did.

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

To create these three media products we had to use a variety of different technologies. Software we used to construct the products was the HD video cameras and the still cameras. We had 3 days to film all our footage for the video and then we had to upload it to the Apple Macs and then onto final cut to edit it. On final cut we could edit the length of each clip and where to put it in the song. It also has a lot of different effects to make the video more interesting. While using this we learnt how to do split screens effectively and we then used this idea throughout the 3 products. We then put our video on blogger which is where we have researched all our ideas and evaluated at each different stage.

To make our digipack and our poster we used the softwear Photoshop also on the Macs which is brilliant for making mote advanced things. This also has a lot of different things to help change the size, shape and effects of each photo. We used the stills camera to take the photos for our digipack and poster but ended up not using them as we just used shots from our video. While using Photoshop the main this that i learnt to do was how to fade just the edges of the pictures which gave it a really good finishing effect.

Thursday 1 December 2011

1/12/11

Today we filmed our directors cut, it took us quite a while but we got what we needed and have good content.
 
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