Our Directors Commentary

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.

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.

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.

Directors Commentary

There are two main different types of audio commentary -

• firstly there is partial or scene specific commentary which onl covers specific areas of the film. Sometimes these are recorded without the speaker viewing the film and the commentator may make more general comments than pointing out specific details.
• secondly there is feature length commentary where the speakers give their thoughts on the film and it is recorded by having the speaker watch the film from beginning to end.

The audio commentary is usually done by the directors and cast members however occasionally the writers and producers.

So I hear you ask; 'what is a directors cut?'

A directors cut is defined by google as 'a specially edited version of a film, and less often TV series, music video, commercials, comic book or video games, that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit.
It is considered that a directors cut is aimed to show the thoughts and feelings the director was feeling, whilst producing his media product. Whether it be why he used certain shot types, costumes, lighting, etc.
A directors cut, also known as a directors edit, will often be found on a seperate disk. They show the media product, with the directors dialogue played over the top of the video shown. Often only true fans watch these as they are most interested in the thoughts and opinions of the director.

Directors commentary evaluation

Directors commentary, also known as audio commentary, is a separate disc which has 1 or more people talking about the video as it plays in time with the original disc. Audio commentary's can be serious or entertaining and they can describe more about what is going on in than the viewers may originally see.
There are two types of main director commentary's:

• Partial or scene-specific, which only covers selected scenes of the film. Sometimes these are recorded without the speaker viewing the film and therefore the commentator may make more general comments than pointing out specific details.
• Feature-length or screen-specific, which is recorded in one session: the speakers watch the movie from beginning to end and give their thoughts directly based on what is happening on-screen.

Digi pack cover

magazine final version

YAY!!!!!

Plan for the weeks ahead.

28th November Monday- Timed response to evaluation Questions
30th November Wednesday- No lesson. Type up timed response onto the Blog. Prepare your script.
1st December Thursday- Filming your script- 45 minutes in studio only.
5th December Monday- Editing.
7th December Wesnesday- Editing deadline.
8th December Thursday- Hear feedback on script.
12th December- /finalise blogs.

Conventions of a Magazine advert.

These are a list of the conventions of a magazine advert:

• Title of the band
• The release date
• The age rating 
• Reviews 
• Pictures, should show the genre of the artists song
• Record label
• Text should be eye catching and show genre

With a magazine advert the main aim is to sell the DVD so the magazine ad should show clearly when and where it is coming out and who it is that is selling it. 

Conventions of a DVD cover.

On a DVD cover this is a list of things that should be included:

• A title
• Pictures of the characters or artists
• Age certificate 
• DVD symbol
• Tag line
• About the DVD
• The song list
• Synopsis

These all need to be included in a conventional DVD cover to show the content of the DVD and sell the artist.

Digitpak Research

1. analyse - a video/dvd cover/advert preferably from the same artist.

 - see if there is a running theme in all of them.
Yes, the location where the video was filmed has been used for both the DVD cover and for the advert, the song is about isolation and the theme of the dvd case is the two main characters being isolated from one another. The advert has a very professional finish to it and there isn't too much writing on it clogging it up. The way that the top and bottom of the picture has been blurred and darkened to give it a cold effect.

- discuss how they promote the artist.
They have put the main singer on the front cover of the DVD case with the secondary singer on the back. The artist does not feature on the advert but this helps promote the isolation.

- discuss images/font style.
The same style of image has been used for both of the advert and the dvd case. This gives it a good overall theme of the graffiti which appeals to the younger audience. The same font is also used in both of the advert and the DVD case giving it a good running theme.

2.  plan your own ideas plus upload photos/stills you use

Video Feedback

- The split screen was extremely effective
- Great shot variety
- The comedy was useful towards the type of song it was
- The lip syncing wasn't bad because of the speed of the lyrics
- They promote the artist successfully by by showing all members of the group when they are all together and separate in different shots
- They meet the genre conventions through the randomness of the shots within the footage
- The shot with the phone boxes was really good, good use of the fade transition

T2-40
WE LOVED IT
it meets the genre completely, group mentality, comical, selling the artist.
quirky, 'lads day in cambridge'
Fashion meets the genre.
Timed well, lip synced well.
really liked the split screening, and the multiple split screening, all the timing for the cuts was brilliant and fit in really well with the song.
Like how the end finished how it started but in rewind.
There's no narrative but there didn't need to be one because the lyrics and genre was all random and so that made the video interesting.
The only thing we would do differently, would be to add a bit more commitment to the signing.

T239
GOOD

Used loads of different techniques
Different camera angles
effective use of lighting and locations
fits with genre
appeals to the conventions
really enjoyable
Split screens

BAD
drags a little later in the song
camera is a bit shaky some times
ITS GOOD


T2-38

Good:

• SWANS
• Loads of variation in camera angles
• Lip synced reasonable well for the pace of the song.
• Ducks.
• Split screens used really effectively
• Ducks
• Colour correction on the police-car scene
• Randomly brilliant, no real story which worked well
• Swans.. 
• More Swans..
• Two swans in one shot..
• THE POODLE.
• Use of de-focussing camera
• Good use of camerawork, zooms, pans, tracks.
• SWANS.

Improvements:

• One split screen looks slightly odd with one addition
• The telephone box shot duration was a bit long but good effect.
• Some lighting is too contrasting

Our Response To Feedback

We agree with the criticism particularly that some of our shots are too shakey, however we feel that some  of these shaking shots add to the variety in our video. We're very happy that the animals are appreciated, as we thought these shots added to our video alot. We are glad that people understood the lack of narrative in our video, as the song offers no narrative either. Also that the lip syncing was very hard to do, people seem to think it was satisfactory!

Here it is!

Our video problem

our 'final cut' had some issues with it so we had to come and re-edit it.

Our Final Cut-music video

Diary Entry. Monday 14th November.

Today was our last day to edit!
We have now edited all or footage and we will now upload it to our blog. We have taken all the advice our other classmates and all our teachers have given us and tried to improve our video for the final cut. We feel it has gone very well today and we are ready to upload it.

Diary entry. Wednesday 9nd November

Today we are uploading the video footage we filmed on monday, we hope there is enough footage to fill the other few minutes of music.
After sending an email to Everything Everything we did get a reply however it wasn't as helpful as we had hoped. We asked them what message they were trying to portray in their song 'Schoolin'. We did this over facebook & one of their other fans posted a video where the band talk through each other their songs. We had already watched this video previously so this wasn't too helpful to us, however we appreciated their reply.
We hope to edit some more of our video today.

Diary entry. Monday 7th November.

Today we had our teacher watch our video to give us some constructive critisism. Essentially we were told to film more lip syncing and make use of more advance editing techniques.
After hearing this advice we starting creating ideas for different editing possibilities and quickly set out our footage to create some split screens, over the reoccurring whistling in the song.
We are filming tonight after college and this will be our final chance to film. We understand that we will be very rushed tonight, having to film 2 minutes worth of footage, as it gets dark very early.

Diary entry. Thursday 3rd November

Today we took our critisism from our peers into consideration and tried to correct some of the issues with our video.
After planning where and when we will film more lip syncing we left the classroom to go to film more footage of singing, drumming and whistling, including other 'random shots'. However unfortunately some of our footage was deleted, or not uploaded. We intend to upload the remaining footage next lesson.

Feedback from other students

Good feedback:

• Lots of shot types, angles and distances
• Good Location
• It is a fun video
• Interesting to watch
• Clothing is good

Criticism:

• Not enough lip syncing
• Sometimes a bit too random
• Some cuts aren't that smooth
• Could have more of a narritive
• Keep more footage of the band
• Make each band member have a character

Research into filters and special effects.

Blur, Border, Glow, Colour Correction, Channel, Distort, Image, Key, Matte, Perspective, Quicktime, Sharpen, Stylize, Tiling, Time, Video. These are all types of video filters which are used to make the footage more interesting and put a nice affect over the top of the original footage.

Research into transition types

Cut
The most common transition- an instant change from one shot to the next. The raw footage from your camera contains cuts between shots where you stop and start recording.


Crossfades
Crossfades have a more relaxed feel than a cut and are useful if you want a meandering pace, contemplative mood


Fade
Fades can be used between shots to create a sort of crossfade which, for example, fades briefly to white before fading to the next shot.

Wipe

One shot is progressively replaced by another shot in a geometric pattern.

Digital Effects

Most editing applications offer a large selection of digital transitions with various effects.

Classification

We checked the British Board of Film Classification website to see which category our film fell under, we decided that it would be parental guidance as they were some scenes that may require adult supervision, such as when Lewis stands in the road, which a child may try to imitate. Also Matt stands on a roundabout and sings which is very dangerous and potentially illegal.

Target audience research expectations.

We showed our peers videos which are similar to that of our artists, to see how they respond or react to the videos editing, and general style.
After watching 'The Bay' my Metronomy the audience thought that the editing was very good, therefore we will try to edit our video to a similar quality, however we understand this won't be likely.

We think our target audience are of the same age as us, as typically the genre of music Everything Everything create is most appreciated by our age group, perhaps 15-25 year olds.
Because of this we have established that we must be wearing contemporary clothing, which must also be fashionable, however not 'in your face'. The clothing we have thought of are chinos, wooley jumpers & cardigans (knitwear) & smart casual shoes. We will not be wearing any make-up because we feel this genre of music is quite modest, therefore we must look as honest as possible.

Blog Diary 19/10/11

Today we are carrying on editing our footage into our music video. Our rough cut deadline is tomorrow so we need to get a lot done today.

Blog Diary 17/10/11

We filmed all our footage on friday and it was very successful and went very well.

Today we are uploading our footage onto the computer and we will start to edit it in this lesson. 

We have 143 clips to upload. One problem we did find while filming was lip syncing our song.
We have also finished our test shot so we have uploaded it to our blog.

Here it is.

All our footage is now on the blog and we have started to edit it into place. 

Thursday the 6th of October
2:40 - meet in the media classroom
2:45 - collect camera from media office
2:50 - drive into Cambridge City Centre
3:20 - Matt starts filming whilst skate boarding around town
4:00 - Film at the bottom of the libary stairs
4:20 - Film establishing shot at St Mary's Church and praise the lord shot
4:40 - Film in a busy place eg Outside Grande Arcade, Drummer Street
5:00 - Film at the punting bridge
5:20 - Finish filming for the day.

Thursday the 13th of October
Not sure about exact times but we will be going to the river and filming some singing in the studio at college.

Shot lists

Storyboards

Location

This is similar to one of our locations, which we will be using for our establishing shot.

Health and Safety

Some of the things we need to consider are:

• Matt skating, E.G Elbow pads, knee pads, helmet.
• Avoid pedestrians when Matt is skating.
• Wear seatbelts when driving to location.
• Careful near river.
• Using candle, so will be cautious around flame.

Questions from Peers

Have you thought of the location?
Yeah we have a few locations up our sleeves, one for example could be corridors of a school, school fields, fields, football pitches etc

Showing instruments?
Yes, guitars, close ups and long shots, keyboard, triangle.

How long will it take us?
2 nights.

Effects?
Sepia, cool transitions, black and white, montage, fades

How we will use voyeurism

Other music videos of the same genre tend to show the whole band, lip synching to the music. Each singer or member of the band is dressed smart, with their hair done nicely too, in their own personal style. This relates to voyeurism.

How we can suit 'Genre Characteristics'

We have looked at similar bands to 'Everything Everything' to compare thing such as: Costumes, Location, Props.
Some of the things we have noticed is the casual clothing, this is because they don't want to seem over serious but cool.
It is quite relaxed music, and this is shown in the videos. The lighting is dark but mostly natural and the clothes are casual,
Location - They all use quite casual locations to make them seem normal. Almost the same as they wear casual clothes to not seem too serious. For locations they would use somewhere like a street, a shopping centre etc.
Props - the props used were generally instruments.

How we will use Intertextuality.

We need to include product placement into our music video. We think this may be hard, but with use of certain guitar brands and keyboard brands, this may not be such an issue. We could also dress our actors in the video in certain clothing brands; shoes, T-shirts etc. We researched the clothing people in this genre wear, and it seems to be the sort of clothing sold in Topman, or River Island. The sort of style of clothing is shown here, however we feel we would like to give it a more casual and personal touch.

How we will 'Sell the artist'

We feel this song gives us the opportunity to use instruments as props, this meets genre characteristics as well. The instruments used are very unusual so we will have fun finding and using these instruments. We understand we will not be able to play these instruments so we will use lots of close shots of fret changes on a guitar, or close up of other instruments. This will show that an instrument is being played, however not in enough detail to be able to tell we are playing them wrong. Shots a lot like this.

We will also have some lip syncing in the video, this will sell the artists as a skill full singer, and actor. Also if we dress this character up, he will look more attractive to viewers, selling the artist as a model for the band.

How to use 'Visuals and music'

Our song, by Everything Everything has a very bold beat throughout the song, which we think will be easy to work with, and effective. There is also a repetitive whistle like sound in the song which comes between the verses, we feel this is something quite different which gives us freedom to play about with it.
The opening of the song is a fading in like sound, which makes us think we could make use of an effective establishing shot, much like what was used in the music for 'The Bay' by 'Metronomy'.
There is a change of pace in the music from the beginning through to the end, we can portray this in the music video with uses of faster, or slower cuts, throughout the video.
We could also change the location of the shots used, which will give us a lot of variation, making our video more appealing, and matching characteristics of other song choices.

How we can use 'Visuals lyrics'

We this this song is more experimental than narrative or performance style.
The lyrics of this song are seem very random so it was hard to find an ongoing message throughout the song. However after doing some research it seems the song is criticising the schooling system. Some listeners have analysed the song and agreed with us. The song 'Schoolin' goes through different subjects and critisises the way in which they are taught.


"And I don't wanna make a scene
I don't wanna think about the 3rd world hunger or whatever
'Cause thinking always comes across
A little..."


This lyric here is an example of learning or thinking about third world problems, and issue Everything Everything understand is an issue, but do not feel dwelling on will make a difference, as much as actively making a difference. This message seems to be portrayed throughout the video, talking about different issues and criticisms about them. We hope to elaborate on these bases.

Schoolin' Lyrics

Brother you look like the Taj Mahal
One colossal dome above you and the smell of something other
A pillar and a scimitar
A little…

Yes I miss you like a formless hide
Stretching over me and dangled from the coastguard in a chopper
The scaffold of me all awry
A little...

Broke your shoulder on the library steps
Hanging 'round there in the dark just doing nothing or whatever
What do you mean you saw the stars?
You little...

I could write it in a murder font
I could say it in a way that would be lying or whatever
I don't want them to tell us apart!

You say that I'm an overlord? I've got myself a fire hydrant, with more tyrant
In watery blasts, then all of my past!
You seen me on the bridge a lot. But I never leapt over, the pent upper
My number is up, my number is up
But infinite and joyless little high fives are singing "Praise the lord"
And "Pitter patter this schooling? Is this schooling?" and "You matter not, and you matter not"
And is it, the flogging of a Flintstone
That I'm supposed to be?
The cerebellum get schoolin', and no schoolin'
The drummer goes on, the drama goes on

(Teach me how to hold)

And I don't wanna make a scene
I don't wanna think about the 3rd world hunger or whatever
'Cause thinking always comes across
A little...

There's a meeting of the worlds tonight
Right above my head a miracle the sun erupt forever
I barely ever raise my eyes
A little
(Teach him how to hold!)

And oh I wanna make the peace
And God I gotta be on the train past the ruins the wall and the druids oh please

I'm whining like a breaking bus
Maybe I can sit here and do nothing clever with a laser
I'm not about to open up!

You say that I'm an overlord? I've got myself a fire hydrant, with more tyrant
In watery blasts, then all of my past!
You seen me on the bridge a lot. But I never leapt over, the pent upper
My number is up, my number is up
But infinite and joyless little high fives are singing "Praise the lord"
And "Pitter patter this schooling? Is this schooling?" and "You matter not, and you matter not"
And is it, the flogging of a Flintstone
That I'm supposed to be?
The cerebellum get schoolin', and no schoolin'
The drummer goes on, the drama goes on

The drummer goes on, the drama goes on
My number is up, my number is up

Earth, I take a long time, to learn about the big one
Gorilla limb swipe and beat, and I learn nil about
Earth
Remember how men, would understand the heavens
But leaving those streetlights on
You can't see nothing there

So learn me anything good

Teach me something that works, I take a long time, to learn about the big one
Gorilla limb swipe and beat, and I learn dick about Earth
Remember good men, would understand the heavens
And leaving those streetlights on
A ghost dark hemisphere Earth
I take a long time, to learn about the big one
Gorilla limb swipe and beat, and I learn dick about
Earth
Remember good man, you understand the heavens
But leaving those streetlights on?

Why we changed our mind.

At first we thought we would prefer to film the music video for '4 o'clock' by Bashy. However after we all went away and researched the song, looked at the lyrics and listened to it a little more we felt it didn't offer as much potential as 'Schoolin' by Everything Everything. We found Schoolin' had a more interesting beat, melody, and a better set of lyrics which we coud build on. 4 o'clock's lyrics told a narrative of going out and having sex with girls, however Schoolin' offers a lot less narrative, which gives us more freedom to film to suit 'music visuals' as well as a few 'music lyrics', just a lesser proportion.
We found that the lip synching of 4 o'clock by Bashy would prove very difficult aswell, in this way we feel we can spend less time focussing on learning the lyrics and timing of 4 o'clock, and have more fun and concentrate on creativness for the music video of 'Schoolin' by Everything Everything.

Presentation Choice



We have decided to chose the song Schoolin' by Everything Everything. We chose this not only because liked the song but also we think we can have a lot of fun filming it, and that this this will definately come across in the video. We feel this song has great potential for certain shot types, especially elaborating on the heavy beat of the song, meeting Goodwin's theory of analysis 'Music & Visuals'.
Also, with the lyrics being so random and obscure we feel we can get some good visuals of the lyrics.
In the song there are a lot of different instruments being used, which means that we incorporate them into our video, this will also be selling the artist as we will be seeing them playing instruments, singing and also their personality. This is another of Goodwin's points of analysis.
We have looked at matching artist within the same genre characteristics, which was a cross between Indie and Pop. They were dressed quiet casually, and the sort of clothes youd find in Topman or River Island, in this way there is simularity between other artists we researced.

Some of the props we might need to use are: Instruments such as Guitars, Drums, Shaker (as instruments meet genre characteristics in a music video)

Metronomy interview

This is Metronomy, a purely Indie band. We thought it would be beneficial to watch another interview with a slightly different genre, because this would round off our thoughts as to how to film and direct the music video for Schoolin' by Everything Everything. Metronomy are very laid back in their music style, which is very similar to our song choice. Metronomy make use of strong beats in their song, which we find the most interesting thing of our song choice. Metronomy have a lot of successful songs and music videos, which are edited very well.

In this music video use of 'The Bay' which is Metronomy's most well known song. The editing of the video is very unusual, with use of strange transitions and scene changes. There is use of strange shot types, and very elaborate and glamorous images. The Opening shot is an establishing shot of a Bay, which naturally suits the song very well. This instantly sets out the scene of the video, and gets it off to a good start. We want to utilise a strong establishing shot at the beginning of 'Schoolin' because the song seems to warm in quite nicely, much like this song. 

Rizzle Kicks interview

This is Rizzle kicks, a group from london who are similar in style to Everything Everything, the artists of the song we chose. We thought watching this video would benefit us as it helps us get in touch and used to the genre of music, how the artists think, and what sort of style they are looking for. This will help us decide what shot types to use, props, costumes, and other styles of filming which will suit our song choice well. 

Rizzle Kicks say their genre is 'Indie hop', which is similar to Everything Everything as their music is Indie pop.

Bashy- 4 o'clock

This song appealed to us the most out of the song choices.

Listening to the song it gave us certain images, and ideas of what we could possibly film for our music video. The song has a girl in it, as well as a male singer; this made us think that there should be two contrasting themes in the song, between when the girl is singing and when the guy is rapping. 

Track number 8) We liked the beat of this song, and the rapping. We think this genre of music will be quite fun to film, and easy to follow genre characterics. 

Track number 9) (cause it's easy to film)

Track number 11) Good song, we liked the beat of this song and the unusual whistle effect, which we thought we could elaborate on. 

Goodwin's method of analysis

1) Music & lyrics
2) Music & Visuals
3) Selling the artist
4) Intertextuality
5) Genre characteristics
6) Voyeurism

In da' club- 50 cent.

Music & lyrics- When Fiddy cent says 'in da' club' in the song visuals show of people dancing in a club. This adds to the message of the song, and links to the genre of the song (another of Goodwins theory)

Music & visuals- The characters in the video dance to the beat of the music, 50 Cent himself runs to the beat of the music on a Treadmill. This sells the artist as he is flashing his 'attractive' body.

Selling the artist- They show him being topless which shows how hench he is which appeals to some people. He is also wearing 50 cent shorts which promotes the artist further. He looks g while he is in the club.

Intertextuality- 50 cent is seen wearing Tracksuit bottoms which are his own brand, this is tactical product placement as it further sells the artist, and his brand. 50 Cent is wearing a NY Yankees hat, there is also someone wearing a LA Lakers jacket. This may widen the audience of the song as the fan bases for these famous clubs are very big. Nike shoes are also worn by 50 Cent.

50 Cent Digi box.

We think that that every Digi pack should include; The name of the artist, a picture of the artist, the name of the producer, the name of the record company, the name of the most famous songs, a barcode, 'parental guidance' in necessary, an eye catching logo, attractive colours, a booklet inside the case.
The video, single and DVD should all be linked together by similar pictures of the artist wearing the same clothes and using similar colors. Similar fonts should be used aswell.

Throughout the packaging the same font is used for the artist. The front cover of the case shows 50 Cent topless, a very similar image to the photo on the back. The colours used are similar on the DVD itself and the front and back cover, Reds and blacks are used a lot. The images all make him look strong and bold, which is the image he is trying to portray, this promotes the artist in the way he'd like to be promoted.
The spine of the case shows very clearly what it is, reading 'Music videos on DVD'. It also has the artists name on it, further selling the artist.
On the front cover there is a 'Parental advisory' which warns the purchasers that it has explicit content.

Justine Bieber- baby

This is our favourite music video. It's a song by Justin Bieber, a new up coming young artist, collaborating with Ludacris, a well settled Hip- hop artist. The video considers many of Goodwin's theories including selling the artist. Straight away on the video justin bieber is shown, looking very cute, which appeals to girls and boys alike.

Daft punk- Harder better faster stronger

The genre of this music is very new and electronic, so this video suits well. This is because the animation shows futuristic images, which elaborate technology and colors, which match the futuristic sound of Daft Punk's music.

Music and visuals match as there is an electronic guitar riff shown on the animation, as a guitar riff is played. 

Rihanna- In a way we aren't used to seeing her

Since Rihanna first started she has changed alot. She started by following the normal convetions of a female R&B/ Pop singer but has now changed into more of her own person. The Main thing when she started was to sell the artist by making her fit in with what people wanted to see but now she has made her own style to sell herself more.


The Mise-en-scene that she uses inher newer videos is different. she has her own style of clothes and make up whereas before she was just following the conventions of a normal artist.

Frozen- Madonna A song which shows the artist unusually

Madonna is usually shown to be a 'diva' or a happy lady. However in this video she is portrayed as a mysterious person, who is able to change shape, and float. The video is directed by Chris Cunningham, and is simular in some ways to his other work, making him an auteur.

Smack my bitch up- The Prodigy. A video that shocks.

This video shocks us quite a bit due to many reasons. The song doesn't have any lyrics which meant the director had a lot of freedom as to what to put in the video. The director chose to give this video some narrative of a persona going on a night out, which gets out of hand. 

The song has a very fast beat and is very fast pace, which matches the video which have very fast cuts. Smack my bitch up is also very loud and in your face, as if the video, showing a lot of naked girls.

Throughout the video the viewer is shown an unknown person doing unuasual things, such as starting fights in a club, or touching women without consent. This all added to the shock we had when we found out this character is a female, as the actions she made seemed to be ones a male would make (Hiring a hooker, starting fights, eating a kebab etc.)
The music and visuals are very effective, showing strange camera angles and focussing of the camera when the character is drunk, this is something most the viewers understand, as the target audience of 'Smack my bitch up' is of this age.
It didn't shock us that the video was explicit, as the name of the song contains strong language itself. However there is a censored version of this song, which doesn't include any naked women.