Friday, 11 December 2009
Liam's Evaluation
Media Evaluation
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We began to research other music videos from a similar genre too see if any of our initial ideas had any similarities with other professional media products. We then started to look at a few videos that fitted in with our idea which was that of a narrative music video, the videos that we looked at where ‘Rabbit in your headlights’ and ‘Bitter sweet symphony’ these videos seemed too relate to the ideas that we had for our video. Although the songs did have some lip-syncing but as our song is originally performed by females and our video idea was centred around one man we felt that the lip-syncing as the man was walking around would not work for obvious reasons. But we did feel that our idea would work with traditional media conventions without a performance element or any lip-syncing, although at the same time we felt that it would work well if we challenged some of the traditional media conventions but we did link what was going on in the lyrics to what was going on in the video. We also looked at Goodwin’s points as a guideline for our video, it helped us as it shows us how it challenges real media conventions as we felt our video did demonstrate real gender characteristics as in our video the main character was moping around the town on his way home as men would tend too keep there emotions to themselves, also when the main character steps out in front of the car and the driver gets out and shouts at our main character that would be quite a male characteristic to show aggression which the driver did do in that scene. Also the relationship between the lyrics/music and the visuals was quite strong as most of what was going on in the video had a good relationship to the lyrics. Also we did have in our video allot of close ups of the Artist and although there was no performance base the main character is one of the band members and so therefore there is a strong visual style of lots of close ups and shots of the artist, we also use allot of other varieties of shots to build up tension and get a feel of how the character is feeling and how he reacts too things. So it does use allot of real media conventions, and it does fit in with what Goodwin feels is part of a good music video.
All in all I feel that we have produced our video in a conventional way but have also challenged some ways which may be seen as the norm, I feel that it has worked and has been a successful product.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The mood of our main product (The music video) was quite a sombre and depressing mood and we got this across by making our video black and white and getting plenty of shots of our main character looking miserable too get the point across. This was done to fit with the lyrics to show how everything ‘went wrong.’ We then carried this across by using the same black and white effect used in the video in both of the ancillary texts, we also used good continuity across all of the pieces as we had the front cover of our CD case the picture on this was take on location at one of the scenes used in the video and then that front cover was also used on our poster. We also linked the who CD cover the alternative genre of music as it was kept to the same style as our video but also made it a bit different which is a bit like the style of music. We did have some feedback which felt that our CD cover was a bit random as it did have a couple of other people that where not in the video on it but they are members of the actual band, we felt that it did have significance to the whole thing and it also fitted well with real media products as often in many music videos the whole band does not feature in but there is often pictures of the band on the CD case.
The whole piece all together seems to all fit together as we have carried the whole theme across all three products, we also managed to use the same locations, people and costumes so there is a good level of continuity across all of out pieces which gives a good level of professionalism and does tie in with professional media products.
3. What have you learnt from audience feedback?
I felt that there was a lot to learn form our feedback, although in the main all of the feedback that we received was all very positive and it seemed as though the audience enjoyed our work, if there is something that the audience feel we could have done would only make the video better whether or not it would have been an idea that we may have done ourselves. The general feel from the audience feedback is that we should have had some performance based element in the video, but we believed that it would still work if we did have a pure narrative theme running throughout the whole video, and even after our rough-cut and it was felt we could have added a performance element into it would be allot more consistent to just have it as narrative. People also felt that a little more variation between scenes could have been used, but in answer to that we felt that the variation in shots within the scenes helped build up the suspense that was necessary and also got the feeling of the character across to the audience. Also we did add small pieces in between the scenes to add the drama and add more suspense to what was going to conclude our characters journey. It was also felt that the ending of our video could have been a little more conclusive, but we felt that leaving it how we did with our character getting attacked it would leave our audience to make up their minds on what happened to our character, also it left it on a bit cliff-hanger so the audience would be left thinking and would draw them too future videos too see the relevance if any, as some professional music videos do have a general them of each single released form an album.
From the video feedback the feeling is that it is generally all very positive and that people did like it, but it does seem as though the majority of the target audience would have like too of seen the whole band in the video and have had a performance element, although the narrative idea did work it could have made our video stronger and more appealing if there was more shots of the band performing. Also some other people did feel that the whole idea did work as the narrative idea did build suspense of what was going in the video and were able to concentrate on what was going on in the video without seeing the band performing the song they were able too keep focussed on what the story of the guy on his way home from work was.
There was other feedback too our digi-pack as well and people felt that we had carried the theme of the video across all of our sources of media and it was felt that this was a strong idea and that it was pulled of well. Also the fact that the costumes were carried across all of the media pieces and the main theme of the black and white.
All in all it is felt that people did like our digi-pack especially the relationship between that and the video. It was felt that more information could have been displayed on the poster and the CD cover but other than that people did seem to like it and the relationship between the pieces.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
During the researching and planning stage we used various types of media technologies, we started by looking at music videos on YouTube of bands that we knew where of a similar indie route, we looked at these videos and developed our initial ideas through this, we then used things like Google to research into our band and visit the web page too look at there influences and their other videos. We also added some of our idea too the blogger.com site and on here we developed all of our ideas and we got feedback from the group.
When we got a bit further on with the planning stage we drew up or story board and took photos of it on PhotoBooth and then added them too blogger.com. Upon constructing our video we used programmes.
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We began to research other music videos from a similar genre too see if any of our initial ideas had any similarities with other professional media products. We then started to look at a few videos that fitted in with our idea which was that of a narrative music video, the videos that we looked at where ‘Rabbit in your headlights’ and ‘Bitter sweet symphony’ these videos seemed too relate to the ideas that we had for our video. Although the songs did have some lip-syncing but as our song is originally performed by females and our video idea was centred around one man we felt that the lip-syncing as the man was walking around would not work for obvious reasons. But we did feel that our idea would work with traditional media conventions without a performance element or any lip-syncing, although at the same time we felt that it would work well if we challenged some of the traditional media conventions but we did link what was going on in the lyrics to what was going on in the video. We also looked at Goodwin’s points as a guideline for our video, it helped us as it shows us how it challenges real media conventions as we felt our video did demonstrate real gender characteristics as in our video the main character was moping around the town on his way home as men would tend too keep there emotions to themselves, also when the main character steps out in front of the car and the driver gets out and shouts at our main character that would be quite a male characteristic to show aggression which the driver did do in that scene. Also the relationship between the lyrics/music and the visuals was quite strong as most of what was going on in the video had a good relationship to the lyrics. Also we did have in our video allot of close ups of the Artist and although there was no performance base the main character is one of the band members and so therefore there is a strong visual style of lots of close ups and shots of the artist, we also use allot of other varieties of shots to build up tension and get a feel of how the character is feeling and how he reacts too things. So it does use allot of real media conventions, and it does fit in with what Goodwin feels is part of a good music video.
All in all I feel that we have produced our video in a conventional way but have also challenged some ways which may be seen as the norm, I feel that it has worked and has been a successful product.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The mood of our main product (The music video) was quite a sombre and depressing mood and we got this across by making our video black and white and getting plenty of shots of our main character looking miserable too get the point across. This was done to fit with the lyrics to show how everything ‘went wrong.’ We then carried this across by using the same black and white effect used in the video in both of the ancillary texts, we also used good continuity across all of the pieces as we had the front cover of our CD case the picture on this was take on location at one of the scenes used in the video and then that front cover was also used on our poster. We also linked the who CD cover the alternative genre of music as it was kept to the same style as our video but also made it a bit different which is a bit like the style of music. We did have some feedback which felt that our CD cover was a bit random as it did have a couple of other people that where not in the video on it but they are members of the actual band, we felt that it did have significance to the whole thing and it also fitted well with real media products as often in many music videos the whole band does not feature in but there is often pictures of the band on the CD case.
The whole piece all together seems to all fit together as we have carried the whole theme across all three products, we also managed to use the same locations, people and costumes so there is a good level of continuity across all of out pieces which gives a good level of professionalism and does tie in with professional media products.
3. What have you learnt from audience feedback?
I felt that there was a lot to learn form our feedback, although in the main all of the feedback that we received was all very positive and it seemed as though the audience enjoyed our work, if there is something that the audience feel we could have done would only make the video better whether or not it would have been an idea that we may have done ourselves. The general feel from the audience feedback is that we should have had some performance based element in the video, but we believed that it would still work if we did have a pure narrative theme running throughout the whole video, and even after our rough-cut and it was felt we could have added a performance element into it would be allot more consistent to just have it as narrative. People also felt that a little more variation between scenes could have been used, but in answer to that we felt that the variation in shots within the scenes helped build up the suspense that was necessary and also got the feeling of the character across to the audience. Also we did add small pieces in between the scenes to add the drama and add more suspense to what was going to conclude our characters journey. It was also felt that the ending of our video could have been a little more conclusive, but we felt that leaving it how we did with our character getting attacked it would leave our audience to make up their minds on what happened to our character, also it left it on a bit cliff-hanger so the audience would be left thinking and would draw them too future videos too see the relevance if any, as some professional music videos do have a general them of each single released form an album.
From the video feedback the feeling is that it is generally all very positive and that people did like it, but it does seem as though the majority of the target audience would have like too of seen the whole band in the video and have had a performance element, although the narrative idea did work it could have made our video stronger and more appealing if there was more shots of the band performing. Also some other people did feel that the whole idea did work as the narrative idea did build suspense of what was going in the video and were able to concentrate on what was going on in the video without seeing the band performing the song they were able too keep focussed on what the story of the guy on his way home from work was.
There was other feedback too our digi-pack as well and people felt that we had carried the theme of the video across all of our sources of media and it was felt that this was a strong idea and that it was pulled of well. Also the fact that the costumes were carried across all of the media pieces and the main theme of the black and white.
All in all it is felt that people did like our digi-pack especially the relationship between that and the video. It was felt that more information could have been displayed on the poster and the CD cover but other than that people did seem to like it and the relationship between the pieces.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
During the researching and planning stage we used various types of media technologies, we started by looking at music videos on YouTube of bands that we knew where of a similar indie route, we looked at these videos and developed our initial ideas through this, we then used things like Google to research into our band and visit the web page too look at there influences and their other videos. We also added some of our idea too the blogger.com site and on here we developed all of our ideas and we got feedback from the group.
When we got a bit further on with the planning stage we drew up or story board and took photos of it on PhotoBooth and then added them too blogger.com. Upon constructing our video we used programmes.
Dom's Media Evaluation
1. Our media product uses different media conventions in the way that we use a grittier style of filming and editing when we planned our music video and print products. The style that we used is a style that would be associated with Arctic Monkeys or The Verve, because of how they film their music videos; dark and negative. We really wanted to create the impression that the main character was ‘detached’ and depressed with where he was and what he does. We wanted to convey the genre characteristics of the track, which is ‘Indy/Alternative’, by creating a more dramatic, dark and purely narrative based video, with no performance based content included. We wanted to tell a short story of our main 
character. Other videos that we took influence from such as ‘As the Sun Goes Down’ by Arctic Monkeys and ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ by The Verve, both of which used little to no performance/lip syncing in their music videos, and we felt that this would make ours look more professional and appear as part of the genre much better than if we had included lip syncing. The song that we used for our music video is called ‘If Looks Could Kill’ by Camera Obscurer. The song itself is upbeat and positive, but the lyrics do depict desperation and almost despair with lines like ‘Tell me where it all went wrong’. The official music video uses lots of special effects such as reversing the parts of the footage and using mirror style effects, it combines these effects with the use of strong bold colours and a performance based narrative to create a music video that fits the characteristics of a pop video. It gives the video a surreal feel, and combined with the performance element, creates a very positive mood. We challenged that style with a negative mood and a different perspective on the idea created by the band itself, in our version of the video, the main character appears oblivious to everything around him; we wanted to show how bad his life is; we show him on his journey from work to home, and all the small threats and stressful events that make his life depressing and negative.
Our Print product ideas for the magazine advert and the digipack, were created after the video had been finished, we wanted to continue with the style that we had used for the music video, which was dark and negative, using low lighting and a black and white lighting effect. We used Arctic Monkeys ‘Whatever people say that I am, that’s what I’m not’ album cover as our main influence because of how basic, but how powerful it is. It sets the mood for Arctic Monkeys perfectly because of its genre characteristics; the genre being Indy/alternative, and the characteristics including the use of darker and moodier colour, and trying to make the video show a grittier side to life. The CD cover uses a black and white portrait of a man we don’t know and have never seen before, but at the same time, the man fits perfectly to those genre characteristics mentioned. We wanted this gritty effect with our digipack, so we took our main character to a street location and photographed him at night walking down a busy street. We manipulated the image in Photoshop, desaturating the colour and making it black and white, we used a blur tool to turn the background slightly out of focus, and then added the title to the top right corner of the cover in a muted purple colour, we originally wanted to have it in bold, but we changed our idea because a pastel style colour would suit the genre characteristic better; the title keeps the same negative tone as we managed to produce in the images. I think that the effect works perfectly to convey what the mood of the video is. We used similarly dull, muted colours in the images in the back and the inside of the digipack to continue this negative mood.
2. The combination of our music video and ancillary texts works very well in a number of ways; the digipack and the magazine advert both convey the mood of the music video. This allows the consumer to know what genre the music video will be. The music video itself reflects all of this. We wanted to make both the digipack and the magazine advert hard hitting and eye catching to the consumer through the use of colour and the photos that we used. We did this by keeping the
magazine advert text minimal, and adding the digipack cover into the image of our main character through Photoshop. This makes the advert clear and to the point. We included tour dates and the title in bold red text font to make the text eye catching. This also makes both advert and digipack recognisable and memorable. The Arctic Monkeys song ‘When the Sun Goes Down’ was a big influence on not just the video but both digipack and advert as well because of how memorable it is. We also found influences from other genres of music such as Drum and Bass, the duo act ‘Chase and Status’ and their digipack box for ‘End Credits ft Plan B’ was a large influence because of the way it uses its artists on the cover. We wanted to use this idea in both of the magazine advert and the digipack to give the two print products compatibility and to make them more effective in catching the consumer’s eye.
3. The feedback that we gathered from our audience was very positive and very helpful, it included how the tour dates were a good idea, how the images on the digipack and the magazine advert relate to the video, how the advert is good because you can see the digipack itself and so you can see what it is that is being advertised, and how wearing the same clothes in both the images (background and digipack photo) is very good and shows continuity between the advert and the digipack. Other positive feedback included how the advert and digipack combine well to promote the artist. And how the colour scheme on the digipack works well to create a subtle, grittier mood than the magazine advert. Negative feedback and ideas that we may need to either include or work on in the future include; turning the magazine advert text into the same colour and font as in the digipack, this is to get the colour schemes correct, so that there is continuity between both print products. The magazine advert is hard to read because of how vivid the colour is compared to the background. We also need to include more information on the magazine advert. Usually they include ratings or links for more information and we couldn’t include these for lack of time, we had problems with organisation, some of our group could film but some couldn’t and that led to tension regarding who had the most responsibility. Another point that the audience feedback helped us to identify is the fact that it is hard to understand the reason we have included the images of the
two girls. We used these because we wanted to show the rest of the band in the digipack.
Feedback on music video was also very positive, we managed to make the video very depressing and moody, but we managed to keep it simple and easy to follow. Something else that was picked up on was the variation of shots that we used; we wanted to make sure that each new scenario that the main character encounters, such as the gang of kids, and the being hit by a car, appeared different to each other. A negative point was that we hadn’t included enough action or points of interest throughout the video. This is something that we would defiantly take into account if we were to make a new video. The feedback we gained during the creation of the rough cut of the video helped us to identify this problem, however we found that we were having consistent problems with the camera; these included the battery not working problem, the charging unit not working and the fact that the first camera we were going to use didn’t work at all, and so we couldn’t get all of the shots that we needed, however, we did manage to get around these problems by re-organising shoots and when we would take the camera out. We also found that the ending was not strong enough; this is something that we would change if we had more time on the video. Preferences included using sound as a tool to make the video more conclusive, or using a part of the song to finish on that would suit the ending better. We have learnt through all of this feedback that we need to spend more time on the storyboarding and editing processes than just filming and working on the blog. We have also learnt that we need to listen to the songs and to plan out when certain events will happen and whether it will work with the music at that point in the song. We have also learnt that we need to demonstrate the products as much as possible to gather as much feedback as possible to make the product as good as possible. Feedback is something that all professional film makers use regularly to check if their products are to the standard that the target audience would like them to be.
4. We used a variety of different technologies throughout the creation of our media products; the music video, the digipack and the magazine advert. For our music video we used the video editing software Final Cut Express. This is industry standard editing software and is incredibly versatile. We only scratched the surface of its true editing potential, we really only used it to put our video in a linear order and to cut each clip to the right length of video, however the complex software meant that we could use lots of short snappy shots in a continuing order, this makes the video much more interesting to watch, even if the character is just walking across a road. One of the main things that can be seen straight away with our music video is the fact that it is in black and white. We did this for a number of reasons; the first is the fact that the video would not have worked without the desaturation filters due to the fact that we filmed during November, and we could only film during the early evening, this means it was daylight in the first half of a clip, and then night time in the second half. This ruined continuity, so we had to try and turn what shots we had to the same levels of contrast and light. There is still some noticeable difference, but it doesn’t stop the films continuity. With more time this is something that we would try and prevent from happening. Several shots in the film are slowed down to make the video flow properly, especially when we were using lots of shot-reverse-shots, we needed to make the video look professional and this tool helped considerably in doing so.
For the digipack and the magazine advert, we used the software Photoshop CS3. This is professional photo editing software and, like Final Cut Express, opens many doors to creating a work of art. For the digipack, we wanted to mute the colours to make the photos look more professional, so we used a mix of the colour curves tool on all three of the photos to take the colour out, and on the front cover we made the photo completely black and white, and added a blur to the background. This really helped in making the main
character stand out, making him eye catching. For the magazine advert we muted the colours as we did with the digipack, but we managed to edit a photo of the main digipack cover into the advert, where the main character is holding a blank CD case; we didn’t have an actual print of the digipack cover at the time. We then used a transformation tool to stretch the digipack photo onto the blank CD case so it covered every angle, this made it look a lot more professional than if we had just scaled it to size and rotated it. The final magazine advert photo gives the impression that the actual artist is selling his music to the consumer. We also used Photoshop to create the CD template that gave us the three image spread. These new media technologies are key to creating what we have managed to make. Without the use of software like Final Cut Express and Photoshop, we would not have been able to create what we had to the right standard. The technology enables anyone to have a go at creating something special, not just professionals; they allow for anyone to produce their own professional standard looking films.
For the use of planning and research we used a blogging system to record all of our notes and ideas, including the storyboard, the rough cut, the final cut and both print products, this was also used to allow other groups to give us feedback and help with any issues we felt we had.
word count: 2,248
character. Other videos that we took influence from such as ‘As the Sun Goes Down’ by Arctic Monkeys and ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ by The Verve, both of which used little to no performance/lip syncing in their music videos, and we felt that this would make ours look more professional and appear as part of the genre much better than if we had included lip syncing. The song that we used for our music video is called ‘If Looks Could Kill’ by Camera Obscurer. The song itself is upbeat and positive, but the lyrics do depict desperation and almost despair with lines like ‘Tell me where it all went wrong’. The official music video uses lots of special effects such as reversing the parts of the footage and using mirror style effects, it combines these effects with the use of strong bold colours and a performance based narrative to create a music video that fits the characteristics of a pop video. It gives the video a surreal feel, and combined with the performance element, creates a very positive mood. We challenged that style with a negative mood and a different perspective on the idea created by the band itself, in our version of the video, the main character appears oblivious to everything around him; we wanted to show how bad his life is; we show him on his journey from work to home, and all the small threats and stressful events that make his life depressing and negative.Our Print product ideas for the magazine advert and the digipack, were created after the video had been finished, we wanted to continue with the style that we had used for the music video, which was dark and negative, using low lighting and a black and white lighting effect. We used Arctic Monkeys ‘Whatever people say that I am, that’s what I’m not’ album cover as our main influence because of how basic, but how powerful it is. It sets the mood for Arctic Monkeys perfectly because of its genre characteristics; the genre being Indy/alternative, and the characteristics including the use of darker and moodier colour, and trying to make the video show a grittier side to life. The CD cover uses a black and white portrait of a man we don’t know and have never seen before, but at the same time, the man fits perfectly to those genre characteristics mentioned. We wanted this gritty effect with our digipack, so we took our main character to a street location and photographed him at night walking down a busy street. We manipulated the image in Photoshop, desaturating the colour and making it black and white, we used a blur tool to turn the background slightly out of focus, and then added the title to the top right corner of the cover in a muted purple colour, we originally wanted to have it in bold, but we changed our idea because a pastel style colour would suit the genre characteristic better; the title keeps the same negative tone as we managed to produce in the images. I think that the effect works perfectly to convey what the mood of the video is. We used similarly dull, muted colours in the images in the back and the inside of the digipack to continue this negative mood.
2. The combination of our music video and ancillary texts works very well in a number of ways; the digipack and the magazine advert both convey the mood of the music video. This allows the consumer to know what genre the music video will be. The music video itself reflects all of this. We wanted to make both the digipack and the magazine advert hard hitting and eye catching to the consumer through the use of colour and the photos that we used. We did this by keeping the
magazine advert text minimal, and adding the digipack cover into the image of our main character through Photoshop. This makes the advert clear and to the point. We included tour dates and the title in bold red text font to make the text eye catching. This also makes both advert and digipack recognisable and memorable. The Arctic Monkeys song ‘When the Sun Goes Down’ was a big influence on not just the video but both digipack and advert as well because of how memorable it is. We also found influences from other genres of music such as Drum and Bass, the duo act ‘Chase and Status’ and their digipack box for ‘End Credits ft Plan B’ was a large influence because of the way it uses its artists on the cover. We wanted to use this idea in both of the magazine advert and the digipack to give the two print products compatibility and to make them more effective in catching the consumer’s eye.3. The feedback that we gathered from our audience was very positive and very helpful, it included how the tour dates were a good idea, how the images on the digipack and the magazine advert relate to the video, how the advert is good because you can see the digipack itself and so you can see what it is that is being advertised, and how wearing the same clothes in both the images (background and digipack photo) is very good and shows continuity between the advert and the digipack. Other positive feedback included how the advert and digipack combine well to promote the artist. And how the colour scheme on the digipack works well to create a subtle, grittier mood than the magazine advert. Negative feedback and ideas that we may need to either include or work on in the future include; turning the magazine advert text into the same colour and font as in the digipack, this is to get the colour schemes correct, so that there is continuity between both print products. The magazine advert is hard to read because of how vivid the colour is compared to the background. We also need to include more information on the magazine advert. Usually they include ratings or links for more information and we couldn’t include these for lack of time, we had problems with organisation, some of our group could film but some couldn’t and that led to tension regarding who had the most responsibility. Another point that the audience feedback helped us to identify is the fact that it is hard to understand the reason we have included the images of the
two girls. We used these because we wanted to show the rest of the band in the digipack.Feedback on music video was also very positive, we managed to make the video very depressing and moody, but we managed to keep it simple and easy to follow. Something else that was picked up on was the variation of shots that we used; we wanted to make sure that each new scenario that the main character encounters, such as the gang of kids, and the being hit by a car, appeared different to each other. A negative point was that we hadn’t included enough action or points of interest throughout the video. This is something that we would defiantly take into account if we were to make a new video. The feedback we gained during the creation of the rough cut of the video helped us to identify this problem, however we found that we were having consistent problems with the camera; these included the battery not working problem, the charging unit not working and the fact that the first camera we were going to use didn’t work at all, and so we couldn’t get all of the shots that we needed, however, we did manage to get around these problems by re-organising shoots and when we would take the camera out. We also found that the ending was not strong enough; this is something that we would change if we had more time on the video. Preferences included using sound as a tool to make the video more conclusive, or using a part of the song to finish on that would suit the ending better. We have learnt through all of this feedback that we need to spend more time on the storyboarding and editing processes than just filming and working on the blog. We have also learnt that we need to listen to the songs and to plan out when certain events will happen and whether it will work with the music at that point in the song. We have also learnt that we need to demonstrate the products as much as possible to gather as much feedback as possible to make the product as good as possible. Feedback is something that all professional film makers use regularly to check if their products are to the standard that the target audience would like them to be.
4. We used a variety of different technologies throughout the creation of our media products; the music video, the digipack and the magazine advert. For our music video we used the video editing software Final Cut Express. This is industry standard editing software and is incredibly versatile. We only scratched the surface of its true editing potential, we really only used it to put our video in a linear order and to cut each clip to the right length of video, however the complex software meant that we could use lots of short snappy shots in a continuing order, this makes the video much more interesting to watch, even if the character is just walking across a road. One of the main things that can be seen straight away with our music video is the fact that it is in black and white. We did this for a number of reasons; the first is the fact that the video would not have worked without the desaturation filters due to the fact that we filmed during November, and we could only film during the early evening, this means it was daylight in the first half of a clip, and then night time in the second half. This ruined continuity, so we had to try and turn what shots we had to the same levels of contrast and light. There is still some noticeable difference, but it doesn’t stop the films continuity. With more time this is something that we would try and prevent from happening. Several shots in the film are slowed down to make the video flow properly, especially when we were using lots of shot-reverse-shots, we needed to make the video look professional and this tool helped considerably in doing so.
For the digipack and the magazine advert, we used the software Photoshop CS3. This is professional photo editing software and, like Final Cut Express, opens many doors to creating a work of art. For the digipack, we wanted to mute the colours to make the photos look more professional, so we used a mix of the colour curves tool on all three of the photos to take the colour out, and on the front cover we made the photo completely black and white, and added a blur to the background. This really helped in making the main
character stand out, making him eye catching. For the magazine advert we muted the colours as we did with the digipack, but we managed to edit a photo of the main digipack cover into the advert, where the main character is holding a blank CD case; we didn’t have an actual print of the digipack cover at the time. We then used a transformation tool to stretch the digipack photo onto the blank CD case so it covered every angle, this made it look a lot more professional than if we had just scaled it to size and rotated it. The final magazine advert photo gives the impression that the actual artist is selling his music to the consumer. We also used Photoshop to create the CD template that gave us the three image spread. These new media technologies are key to creating what we have managed to make. Without the use of software like Final Cut Express and Photoshop, we would not have been able to create what we had to the right standard. The technology enables anyone to have a go at creating something special, not just professionals; they allow for anyone to produce their own professional standard looking films.For the use of planning and research we used a blogging system to record all of our notes and ideas, including the storyboard, the rough cut, the final cut and both print products, this was also used to allow other groups to give us feedback and help with any issues we felt we had.
word count: 2,248
Max's Final Evaluation
Media Studies Evaluation- Max Bromley
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
With our particular media products, we heavily researched bands in the indie/alternative genre with some of our main influences coming from groups such as “The Verve” and their song “Bitter Sweet Symphony” and “Oasis – Falling Down”. We gained many new ideas from the research which gave us inspiration to come up with something new such as the story of our main character on his journey home, whist also still conforming to the media conventions of our distinct genre.
Your typical popular music video will display some sort of lip-synching, band performance and lots of enhanced colours, just as in this picture on the right hand side of pop group Alphabeat. In contrast to that we produced a music video that was one-hundred percent narrative, featuring no band members. We also made the video completely black and white so that we could add to the gloomy mood
that we’d established with the storyline. In addition to this the choice of location was essential as we needed to persist with the murky theme of the video. In order to do this we chose various sites in Newmarket that capitalised on this idea such as pathways and side streets. This is a common theme represented by the band “The Arctic Monkeys” in their music videos as displayed on the left. This is quite challenging to forms and conventions in pop music but comfortably fits into the indie/alternative genre that our song (camera obscura-if looks could kill) suits very well. Another point that was quite challenging to forms and conventions of a real media product, was that when we researched the band camera obscura and their video we found out that it was visually quite upbeat, exhibiting lots of mirror effects and shots of the two lead singers. Our video was distinctly different from this but still worked suitably as we found out the lyrics of the song were very flexible. For example, one of the lyrics of the song is “tell me where it all went wrong”. Now this line could be perceived in different ways, as such that in our video as this line is sung our main character is being picked on by thuggish young youths. This diverse visual difference from the original, results in bringing a whole new meaning to the lyrics that can even defy how they were meant to mean in the original song.The advantage of a band or artist promoting themselves as alternative is that it means that they offer something a bit different to common mainstream music. We also continued these conventions through to our digipack covers and magazine advert, with indie photographs and black & white images such as the photographs we produced of the two girls, who we are portraying to be the band members, whilst we also kept it stylish and eye catching. Overall we managed to use other bands material to develop our own work into a piece that to a certain extent challenged the conventions used in the most common music videos.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
As mentioned before the overall theme of our media products was to create a mood of loneliness and sympathetic feeling towards our main character.
We did this by continuing the black & white imagery throughout all three of our media products and then adjusting the affects on each one to stylise each piece. For instance in our music video we just simply turned the film into a sepia effect and combined that with a good narrative and a variation of camera shots. Proceeding that we then turned our attention to our dvd/cd cover. We continued with the black & white effect on the photographs we took and then altered the image so that the m
ain character in the foreground of the shot stayed in focus while we then blurred out the lit up town high street in the background. I think this idea worked well, significantly adding to the sense of loneliness that was established in the film. Likewise on the reverse side of the digipack we introduced the two lead singers with an indie looking photograph with the two girls sat on a wall with an interesting graffiti image behind them. We then tailored the picture by de-saturating out most of the colour making the photograph appear to look dull but maintaining the sharp purple and yellow colour from the background graffiti. As this particular media item has to be seen and bought in shops and online it has to be visually appealing and enticing to look at. As a result simply having a plain black and white image would be far too dreary. By adding this affect we have increased the style of the product making it a lot more commercial. Finally with our magazine advert we went for a more hard sell approach by simply having a mid shot of our main character with an out stretched arm showing the dvd/cd in the face of the camera. The image is accompanied by large font reading “out now!” and a long list of tour dates. The affect of this advert is that you know exactly what the product looks like and sends the message as if to go and buy it right now. The continuity of this piece is that we’ve incorporated the digipack cover into the advert and kept the main character of the video throughout the whole media project.
Having the combination of our main product and our print product together makes the whole package appear to become a much more professional piece. Additionally the print products add new and different elements of style that could not be done in the video, for instance photographic effects and font style. Furthermore extending the product to more than just the music video allows you to show what you can do in the other aspects of media. Displaying your creativity and ability to make a simple photograph look as professional as possible, as well as making the band look marketable and appealing to the consumer. The music video alone displays all sorts of movie making techniques such variation of camera shots and ability to build up tension within a story, but combine that with the total package and you have every aspect of media covered. Something that overall tells you much more about the band and their image.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Generally speaking our audience feedback was very positive. Most people thought that our music video was interesting and a bit different in a way that set it apart from the rest. However both me and my group members are fully aware that our music video and ancillary products were far from perfect. We have discussed the critical points made and come up with how we would make it better if given the opportunity. One of the main problems we faced was time management, resulting in us hurrying to complete editing and rushing to finish our print product. In future if we had more time we would have concentrated more on our magazine advert in particular as in the end this was probably our weakest and most unprofessional piece. We also would have possibly proceeded with increasing continuity on our digipack as certain images on it were in total black and white and others were in colour, making it look perhaps slightly unfinished. More of an issue however was that our magazine advert was sufficiently lacking in important information such as reviews and release dates. What’s more was that the lack of time spent on the advert meant that titles looks rushed and colour schemes did not match. A further point that we would have adjusted would be the days in which we filmed. Because we had a pre set mood for our video it was crucial that we had the right kind of lighting despite it being in black & white. Unfortunately the only time we could film in relatively dim lighting was just as the sun was going down which sadly gave us a small window of opportunity to film once again adding to rushed factor. However with good team planning we could have avoided this problem and prevented us from asking for extra film time and hurrying to meet the deadline possibly resulting in higher quality end product.
Overall we have become much more aware of the importance of feedback, especially during the draft and concept stages of your production, media is an industry which relies heavily on consumer satisfaction and in order to maximise this you must take audience feedback on board and allow it to develop your product in a positive way.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Constructing our media products to the level of quality that we did, would simply not have been possible without the use of new media technologies throughout the project. First off, the project started with researching other bands material to gain inspiration for our own music video, such as looking at other artist’s camera shots, tempo and narratives. We did this by exploring such sites as www.youtube.com where you are given the opportunity to view enormous amounts of videos from every kind of genre. Secondly within the planning process we were given the facility to virtually blog our ideas in an online diary where everything is kept in order. You also publish draft material where you can receive teacher and classmate feedback which is vital for furthering your project. This is all through www.blogger.com via the college website. This is a good way to show others exactly how you’ve got to a certain stage in your project and sharing information is a good way not to copy other peoples work but to look at it and see how it could possibly develop your own work for the better. Thirdly was the filming, where we were given compact, easy to use cameras making it easy to operate quickly and to the best of your ability. Lastly and perhaps most importantly was the editing software on the available state of the art Apple Mac computers. This tool allowed us to change many different elements of the film such as colour, tempo and order of shots. Thus enabling us to set a precise mood and build tension within the video. In terms of the ancillary products we mainly used photoshop software which supplied vast amount of different ways that we could tailor our photograph to perfection. The large range of technologies on offer makes the project much easier to express your creativity and increase precision and correctness. Without the media industry developing in new technological processes and ideas the industry would become stagnant and halt the process of new media innovations.
Word count 1,924
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Lewis's Final Evaluation
1.)In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
From the start of our project we started to research in to previous music videos as well as researching well known music videos, however after hearing our chosen song, which was Camera Obscura – If Looks Could Kill. As Camera Obscura come under the Indie Alternative genre, we decided to look into the likes of the Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down and The Verve – Bitter Sweet Symphony. After researching into music videos such as these we came up with what we think was the right idea for the type of genre and song. Our idea links in with parts of The Verve and the Arctic Monkeys, as our idea was to challenge some
forms and conventions as we decided to make our entire music video narrative based and link it to the lyrics in some way. I feel this was achieved as the end media product worked well, however this was taken into consideration as we looked into Goodwin's points and decided to follow that, but also go against the normal structure of a music video which boosted me into wanting to create a music video that challenged conventions in a different but good way, for example using this full narrative idea.
As Goodwin's points were a good guideline to follow the music video started by looking into Camera Obscura's official music video and looking at it in a different context, as there official music video shows a lot of effects of mirror image and is set in quite a cheerful way, however we decided to change that around and look at the lyrics in a different way as they could be read in a different mood to suit our video, which would be this depressing black and white look. This worked well as the lyrics were very flexible, as in the way they could be perceived either in a good or bad context. This followed Goodwin's points as the lyrics and visuals were linked such as one lyric says 'Tell me when it all went wrong' and this is as the main character is taking abuse from local thugs. As we decided on this Narrative structure for our music video, and we still needed to link the video to some of the lyrics and music, so when it came to filming we needed to focus on the main character and get across the point that he is having the worst day ever and before that his life wasn't interesting at all. This is where we use other media products in our music video as the editing worked well in our music video as the linear narrative, which had a start and an ending as well as spatial editing which made the pace of the song match the video with shot changes and the general pace. Also using continuity editing was very effective as the linear narrative worked well with shots following the previous one making the continuity work. Another way in which we change a normal convention of a music video was that I changed the music video from colour to black and white, all the way through the video, and this was a change that I feel made the video more effective, as it changes the mood to what looks more effective with the lyrics and the music. Another way we've kept the music video narrative based was different shot types and kept to some conventions of narrative music videos by keeping the music video interesting and changing the style of the music video to keep the audience happy, this was made by using tracking shots, such as the shots of me walking straight t
hrough the park, low angled shots, as I come out of my job, also match on action, such as walking round corners etc. just so the video has a bit of differentiation when it is actually just focusing on one character. Another factor that we had to take into account was the location and settings of our music video, this also contributed to producing a thought out music video, as the setting went with the style, genre and mood of the song as well as making the audience see this, such as choosing the park in Newmarket worked well with the style as it was a long lonely walk to emphasize his bad day as well as the walk way of establishing the gang of youths then as the main character gets closer they start to make his bad day get even worse but this kind of urban location was great for getting different angles and shots, but also gave it a feel of loneliness as if something should be happening.
2.)How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
First of all from the music video, we represented it in a more depressing mood by using black and white effects as well as the narrative based effect of showing up the depressing mood to represent the song, as our general idea was to show this character having the worst day of his life when everything feels as if there against him and he's on his own. To show this loneliness we need to represent him in his own world, tracking shots as well as medium close ups were very effective to show how the character is represented. Also from the locations of having wide angled shots as well as long to medium shots really emphasized the theme of loneliness/isolation. The video helped us decide on our ancillary texts style as there wasn't an obvious choice except follow the style of black and white as well as this isolation.
Next was to create our ancillary texts. Our Digi-pack, which was our DVD/CD cover as well as a magazine advert, we decided to link both with our music video. We started to discuss our DVD/CD cover and decided to keep the theme of the video, as we decided to put the main character on the front of the cover. This was based upon the look as well as the genre as it had an indie alternative feel to it. We decided to use the main character standing in the middle of a high street staring at the camera, as I took up about half of the shot. We then decided to play around with effects on Photoshop and ended up on finding a way of keeping the genre of indie as well as our narrative structure of being disconnected from the world around you, this was by blurring the background in the high street and keep the focus on the emotion of the character which links in well with our music video as well as keeping the colour scheme the same (black and white). For the other sides to the cover we decided to include the main features such as the song list, but we also decided on bringing in the two lead singers which are two women. As we still needed to keep the style and emotion we decided to keep the colour scheme going of black and white throughout the whole cover, however we didn't want to confuse the viewers so we made sure the two singers were in the right place as we had them in a grimy location with graffiti in the background, as we faded in the colour of the graffiti to give it more effect to show this glimmer of light or colour through darkness or a disconnected world. The colour of purple was a big choice as we used this on the graffiti and the titles which was an effective choice to have a bit more alternative view which was a good link with the video. The last media product was the magazine advert which didn't turn out as we was hoping it would due to time issues. The magazine advert worked to some extent as we kept the theme of the main character as our main focus to keep a good combination and connection throughout the whole media product. The magazine advert was the only product not to follow the black and white theme however we included the DVD/CD in the advert but didn't follow the colour, this would be the only media product not to follow the same structure from the music video.
Overall we used an effective combination that suited the genre, as we also used an effective pattern to transfer the mood and style of our video onto our ancillary texts, as we've focused on getting the point of isolation or being disconnected from world around you, so I feel the combination worked well except for some time constraints. One main focus that worked well in the end was colour, which was a good representation into life and representing the main focus of our video which was isolation and mood.
3.)What have you learnt from audience feedback?
Our group feedback for all of our media products was generally good and productive feedback, however the main thing that I can pick out is the way in which having no lip-sinking and a whole music video narrative based worked, viewers were quite pleased with the outcome. This big feedback helped me to learn that you don't have to do everything by the books and your own ideas and challenging some conventions do work, especially if they create a different or bold music video that genuinely works. Feedback was quite helpful throughout the whole project as we posted our roughcut version on our blog, and then the feedback given by other groups was very effective as a lot of feedback was about the lighting of our video as we tried to film at dusk each time “Some shots were quite dark”, as the darkness started to get quite noticeable in some shots, so this was the reason we altered our video into a more sepia black and white look, which was an effective change to highlight our genre and to heighten the narrative as it really created this mood or feeling of isolation around the character.
The feedback on our ancillary texts were also helpful, as we could see what we've done well and what others may not like, such as generally the feedback was that everyone seemed to like the black and white theme and the link with our video and our ancillary texts. Such as how we used effects to create our meaning in both video and text form. Another useful feedback that we received was about our ancillary texts and the CD/DVD cover, how we used the two lead singers, and how a lot of the feedback told us that people were confused that they were in the cover, however I feel we needed to include the band members and show something different however this will need explaining on the blog. Another piece of feedback was the criticism of our magazine advert as we had not put enough on it such as information and rating, however timing was an issue as we didn't have time to finish the poster so we could of managed our time better.
4.)How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In the researching and planning stages we used mostly web based research, which included websites such as Youtube, music director websites and Google. But the main website was Blogger, which was used to create this type of diary of research and planning to keep our findings in order as well
as sharing with other groups. Researching was mainly done by looking into previous music videos such as the Artic Monkeys and Camera Obscura's video which was good for brainstorming. Where as Google was used to get facts and different images of each style of some different music videos to put onto the blog. Blogger was useful for bouncing ideas of other people and starting to build up feedback from other groups to see what we were doing right and wrong, as well as develop other ideas from feedback. Another way Blogger was used was to put our storyboard onto Blogger by photographing each screen shot on the storyboard and post it onto our Blog.
In the construction stages of the music video and the ancillary texts, we used final cut express to edit our footage and also create the effects on our music video, and then for the ancillary texts we used Photoshop to create the general layout as well as add on some effects to the still images we had taken. These were all used for the evaluation stages as we could look at everyones media products and start to give and receive feedback on everything leading up to the group. Overall our media products in general all came out as we wanted them to, as well as achieving a full narrative music video, as well as sticking to some of Goodwin's points. I feel that we kept to the style and genre well, as well as combining our music video to our ancillary texts.
From the start of our project we started to research in to previous music videos as well as researching well known music videos, however after hearing our chosen song, which was Camera Obscura – If Looks Could Kill. As Camera Obscura come under the Indie Alternative genre, we decided to look into the likes of the Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down and The Verve – Bitter Sweet Symphony. After researching into music videos such as these we came up with what we think was the right idea for the type of genre and song. Our idea links in with parts of The Verve and the Arctic Monkeys, as our idea was to challenge some
forms and conventions as we decided to make our entire music video narrative based and link it to the lyrics in some way. I feel this was achieved as the end media product worked well, however this was taken into consideration as we looked into Goodwin's points and decided to follow that, but also go against the normal structure of a music video which boosted me into wanting to create a music video that challenged conventions in a different but good way, for example using this full narrative idea.As Goodwin's points were a good guideline to follow the music video started by looking into Camera Obscura's official music video and looking at it in a different context, as there official music video shows a lot of effects of mirror image and is set in quite a cheerful way, however we decided to change that around and look at the lyrics in a different way as they could be read in a different mood to suit our video, which would be this depressing black and white look. This worked well as the lyrics were very flexible, as in the way they could be perceived either in a good or bad context. This followed Goodwin's points as the lyrics and visuals were linked such as one lyric says 'Tell me when it all went wrong' and this is as the main character is taking abuse from local thugs. As we decided on this Narrative structure for our music video, and we still needed to link the video to some of the lyrics and music, so when it came to filming we needed to focus on the main character and get across the point that he is having the worst day ever and before that his life wasn't interesting at all. This is where we use other media products in our music video as the editing worked well in our music video as the linear narrative, which had a start and an ending as well as spatial editing which made the pace of the song match the video with shot changes and the general pace. Also using continuity editing was very effective as the linear narrative worked well with shots following the previous one making the continuity work. Another way in which we change a normal convention of a music video was that I changed the music video from colour to black and white, all the way through the video, and this was a change that I feel made the video more effective, as it changes the mood to what looks more effective with the lyrics and the music. Another way we've kept the music video narrative based was different shot types and kept to some conventions of narrative music videos by keeping the music video interesting and changing the style of the music video to keep the audience happy, this was made by using tracking shots, such as the shots of me walking straight t
hrough the park, low angled shots, as I come out of my job, also match on action, such as walking round corners etc. just so the video has a bit of differentiation when it is actually just focusing on one character. Another factor that we had to take into account was the location and settings of our music video, this also contributed to producing a thought out music video, as the setting went with the style, genre and mood of the song as well as making the audience see this, such as choosing the park in Newmarket worked well with the style as it was a long lonely walk to emphasize his bad day as well as the walk way of establishing the gang of youths then as the main character gets closer they start to make his bad day get even worse but this kind of urban location was great for getting different angles and shots, but also gave it a feel of loneliness as if something should be happening.2.)How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
First of all from the music video, we represented it in a more depressing mood by using black and white effects as well as the narrative based effect of showing up the depressing mood to represent the song, as our general idea was to show this character having the worst day of his life when everything feels as if there against him and he's on his own. To show this loneliness we need to represent him in his own world, tracking shots as well as medium close ups were very effective to show how the character is represented. Also from the locations of having wide angled shots as well as long to medium shots really emphasized the theme of loneliness/isolation. The video helped us decide on our ancillary texts style as there wasn't an obvious choice except follow the style of black and white as well as this isolation.
Next was to create our ancillary texts. Our Digi-pack, which was our DVD/CD cover as well as a magazine advert, we decided to link both with our music video. We started to discuss our DVD/CD cover and decided to keep the theme of the video, as we decided to put the main character on the front of the cover. This was based upon the look as well as the genre as it had an indie alternative feel to it. We decided to use the main character standing in the middle of a high street staring at the camera, as I took up about half of the shot. We then decided to play around with effects on Photoshop and ended up on finding a way of keeping the genre of indie as well as our narrative structure of being disconnected from the world around you, this was by blurring the background in the high street and keep the focus on the emotion of the character which links in well with our music video as well as keeping the colour scheme the same (black and white). For the other sides to the cover we decided to include the main features such as the song list, but we also decided on bringing in the two lead singers which are two women. As we still needed to keep the style and emotion we decided to keep the colour scheme going of black and white throughout the whole cover, however we didn't want to confuse the viewers so we made sure the two singers were in the right place as we had them in a grimy location with graffiti in the background, as we faded in the colour of the graffiti to give it more effect to show this glimmer of light or colour through darkness or a disconnected world. The colour of purple was a big choice as we used this on the graffiti and the titles which was an effective choice to have a bit more alternative view which was a good link with the video. The last media product was the magazine advert which didn't turn out as we was hoping it would due to time issues. The magazine advert worked to some extent as we kept the theme of the main character as our main focus to keep a good combination and connection throughout the whole media product. The magazine advert was the only product not to follow the black and white theme however we included the DVD/CD in the advert but didn't follow the colour, this would be the only media product not to follow the same structure from the music video.
Overall we used an effective combination that suited the genre, as we also used an effective pattern to transfer the mood and style of our video onto our ancillary texts, as we've focused on getting the point of isolation or being disconnected from world around you, so I feel the combination worked well except for some time constraints. One main focus that worked well in the end was colour, which was a good representation into life and representing the main focus of our video which was isolation and mood.
3.)What have you learnt from audience feedback?
Our group feedback for all of our media products was generally good and productive feedback, however the main thing that I can pick out is the way in which having no lip-sinking and a whole music video narrative based worked, viewers were quite pleased with the outcome. This big feedback helped me to learn that you don't have to do everything by the books and your own ideas and challenging some conventions do work, especially if they create a different or bold music video that genuinely works. Feedback was quite helpful throughout the whole project as we posted our roughcut version on our blog, and then the feedback given by other groups was very effective as a lot of feedback was about the lighting of our video as we tried to film at dusk each time “Some shots were quite dark”, as the darkness started to get quite noticeable in some shots, so this was the reason we altered our video into a more sepia black and white look, which was an effective change to highlight our genre and to heighten the narrative as it really created this mood or feeling of isolation around the character.
The feedback on our ancillary texts were also helpful, as we could see what we've done well and what others may not like, such as generally the feedback was that everyone seemed to like the black and white theme and the link with our video and our ancillary texts. Such as how we used effects to create our meaning in both video and text form. Another useful feedback that we received was about our ancillary texts and the CD/DVD cover, how we used the two lead singers, and how a lot of the feedback told us that people were confused that they were in the cover, however I feel we needed to include the band members and show something different however this will need explaining on the blog. Another piece of feedback was the criticism of our magazine advert as we had not put enough on it such as information and rating, however timing was an issue as we didn't have time to finish the poster so we could of managed our time better.
4.)How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In the researching and planning stages we used mostly web based research, which included websites such as Youtube, music director websites and Google. But the main website was Blogger, which was used to create this type of diary of research and planning to keep our findings in order as well
as sharing with other groups. Researching was mainly done by looking into previous music videos such as the Artic Monkeys and Camera Obscura's video which was good for brainstorming. Where as Google was used to get facts and different images of each style of some different music videos to put onto the blog. Blogger was useful for bouncing ideas of other people and starting to build up feedback from other groups to see what we were doing right and wrong, as well as develop other ideas from feedback. Another way Blogger was used was to put our storyboard onto Blogger by photographing each screen shot on the storyboard and post it onto our Blog.In the construction stages of the music video and the ancillary texts, we used final cut express to edit our footage and also create the effects on our music video, and then for the ancillary texts we used Photoshop to create the general layout as well as add on some effects to the still images we had taken. These were all used for the evaluation stages as we could look at everyones media products and start to give and receive feedback on everything leading up to the group. Overall our media products in general all came out as we wanted them to, as well as achieving a full narrative music video, as well as sticking to some of Goodwin's points. I feel that we kept to the style and genre well, as well as combining our music video to our ancillary texts.
Commentary Script Prompts
Topics to Discuss
*No Lipsynching >> Discuss scene of Lewis just walking through the park not lipsynching to the music.
*Building Tension >> Discuss scene of shot-reverse shot between Lewis and smoker or Lewis and the car.
*Diversity of Shots >> Discuss low angle shot of lewis before he approaches the smoker,display montage of different shots and explain what they add to the video.
*Location >> Why? What does it add to the video?
*Technologies Used >> Apple Mac Computers, how they helped us? - Blogger & youtube
*Inspiration,Developments,Challenges >> Arctic Monkeys, The verve, Oasis - How we used their ideas, made them our own and challenged media with 100% narrative and no band performance
*Print Products >> What does it add to the whole final piece ?
*Genre >> Discuss what particular Genre our band is and how we've complied with that what effect that genre has.
*Style >> Colours, Fonts, de-saturation, contrasts and why? what was the effect?
*Feedback >> How it helped, what we'd do differently, the importance of it.
*No Lipsynching >> Discuss scene of Lewis just walking through the park not lipsynching to the music.
*Building Tension >> Discuss scene of shot-reverse shot between Lewis and smoker or Lewis and the car.
*Diversity of Shots >> Discuss low angle shot of lewis before he approaches the smoker,display montage of different shots and explain what they add to the video.
*Location >> Why? What does it add to the video?
*Technologies Used >> Apple Mac Computers, how they helped us? - Blogger & youtube
*Inspiration,Developments,Challenges >> Arctic Monkeys, The verve, Oasis - How we used their ideas, made them our own and challenged media with 100% narrative and no band performance
*Print Products >> What does it add to the whole final piece ?
*Genre >> Discuss what particular Genre our band is and how we've complied with that what effect that genre has.
*Style >> Colours, Fonts, de-saturation, contrasts and why? what was the effect?
*Feedback >> How it helped, what we'd do differently, the importance of it.
Sunday, 6 December 2009
Lewis's Evaluation
Media Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
From the start of our music video we started to research in to previous videos as well as researching well known music videos, however after hearing our chosen song, which was Camera Obscura – If Looks Could Kill, we decided to research into music videos. As Camera Obscura come under the Indie Alternative genre, we decided to look into the likes of the Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down and The Verve – Bitter Sweet Symphony. After researching into music videos such as these we came up with what we think was the right idea for the type of genre and song. Our general idea links in with parts of The Verve and the Arctic Monkeys, as our general idea was to challenge some forms and conventions as we decided to make our entire music video narrative based and link it to the lyrics in some ways. I feel this was achieved as the end media product worked well, however this was taken into consideration as we looked into Goodwin's points and decided to follow that, but also go against the normal structure of a music video which boosted me into wanting to create a music video that challenged conventions in a different but good way.
As Goodwin's points were a good guideline to follow the music video started by looking into Camera Obscura's real music video and looking at it in a different context, as there actually music video shows a lot of effects of mirror image and is set in quite a cheerful way, however we decided to change that around and look at the lyrics in a more depressing way, which worked well as the lyrics were very flexible, as in the way they could be perceived either in a good or bad context. This followed Goodwin's points as the lyrics and visuals were very linked such as one lyric says 'Tell me when it all went wrong' and this is as the main character is taking abuse from local thugs. As we decided on this Narrative structure for out music video, and we still needed to link the video to some of the lyrics and music, so when it came to filming we needed to focus on the main character and get across the point that he is having the worst day ever and before that his life wasn't interesting at all. This is where we use other media products in our music video as the editing worked well in our music video as the pace of the song matches the video with shot changes and the general pace of the video from start to finish. Another way in which we change a normal convention of a music video was that I changed the music video from colour or natural light to black and white or sepia all the way through the video, and this was a changed that I feel has boosted the video, as it changes the mood to what sounded right from the lyrics and the music. Another way we've used kept the music video flowing was different shot types and kept to some conventions of narrative music videos by keeping the music video interesting and changing the style of the music video to keep the audience happy, this was made by using tracking shots, low angled shots, match on action etc. just so the video has a bit of differentiation when it is actually just focusing on one character. Another factor that we had to take into account was the location and settings of our music video, this also contributed to producing a different and watchable music video, as the setting went with the style, genre and mood of the song as well as making the audience see this, such as choosing the park in Newmarket worked well with the style as it was a long lonely walk to emphasize his bad day as well as the walk way of establishing the gang of youths then as the main character gets closer they start to make his bad day get even worse but this kind of urban location was great for getting different angles and shots, but also gave it a feel of loneliness as if something should be happening.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
First of all from the music video, we represented it in a more depressing mood by using black and white effects as well as the narrative based effect of showing up the depressing mood to represent the song, as our general idea was to show this character having the worst day of his life when everything feels as if there against him and he's on his own. To show this loneliness we need to represent him in his own world, tracking shots as well as medium close ups were very effective to show how the character is represented. Also from the locations of having wide angled shots as well as long to medium shots really emphasized the narrative.
Next was to create our ancillary texts or our Digi-pack, which was our DVD/CD cover as well as a magazine advert, we decided to link both with our music video. We started to discuss our DVD/CD cover and decided to keep the theme of the video, as we decided to put the main character on the front of the cover. This was based upon the look as well as the genre as it had an indie alternative feel to it. We decided to use the main character standing in the middle of a high street staring at the camera, as I took up about half of the shot. We then decided to play around with effects on Photoshop and ended up on finding a way of keeping the genre of indie as well as our narrative structure of this loneliness by blurring the background in the high street and keep the focus on the emotion of the character which links in well with our music video as well as keeping the colour scheme the same of a black and white indie feel. For the other sides to the cover we decided to included the main features such as the song list, but we also decided on bringing in the two lead singers which are two women. As we still needed to keep the style and emotion we decided to keep the colour scheme going of black and white throughout the whole cover, however we didn't want to confuse the viewers so we made sure the two singers were in the right place as we had them in a grimy location with graffiti in the background, as we faded in the colour of the graffiti to give it more effect. The colour of purple was a big choice as we used this on the graffiti and the titles which was an effective choice to have a bit more alternative view which was a good link with the video. The last media product was the magazine advert which didn't turn out as we was hoping it would due to time issues. The magazine advert worked to some extent as we kept the theme of the main character as our main focus to keep a good combination and connection throughout the whole media product. The magazine advert was the only product not to follow the black and white theme however we included the DVD/CD in the advert but didn't follow the colour, this would be the only media product not to follow the same structure from the music video.
Overall we used an effective combination that suited the genre, as we also used an effective pattern to transfer the mood and style of our video onto our ancillary texts, as we've focused on getting the point of this bleak look into life when nothings going right around you, so I feel the combination worked well except for some time constraints, and one main focused that worked well in the end was a look into colour, which was a good representation into life.
What have you learnt from audience feedback?
Our group feedback for all of our media products were generally good and productive feedback, however the main thing that I can pick out is the way in which having no lip sinking and a whole music video narrative based worked, viewers were quite pleased with the outcome. This big feedback helped me to learn that you don't have to do everything by the books and your own ideas and challenging some conventions do work, especially if they create a different or bold music video that genuinely works. Feedback was quite helpful throughout the whole project as we posted our roughcut version on our blog, and then the feedback given by other groups was very effective as a lot of feedback was about the lighting of our video as we tried to film at dusk each time, but it started to get dark in some shots, so this was the reason we altered our video into a more sepia black and white look, which was an effective change to highlight our genre and to heighten the narrative.
The feedback on our ancillary texts were also helpful, as we could see what we've done well and what others may not like, such as generally the feedback was that everyone seemed to like the black and white theme and the link with our video and our ancillary texts. Such as how we used effects to create our meaning in both video and text form. Another useful feedback that we received was about our ancillary texts and the CD/DVD cover, how we used the two lead singers, and how a lot of the feedback told us that people were confused that they were in the cover, however I feel we needed to include the band members and show something different however this will need explaining on the blog. Another piece of feedback was the criticism of our magazine advert as we had not put enough on it such as information and rating, however timing was an issue as we didn't have time to finish the product.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In the researching and planning stages we used mostly web based research, which included websites such as Youtube, music director websites and Google. But the main website was Blogger, which was used to create this type of diary of research and planning to keep our findings in order as well as sharing with other groups. Researching was mainly due to looking into previous music videos such as the Artic Monkeys and Camera Obscura's video which was good for brainstorming. Where as Google was used to get facts and different images of each style of some different music videos to put onto the blog. Blogger was useful for bouncing ideas of other people and starting to build up feedback from other groups to see what we were doing right and wrong, as well as develop other ideas from feedback. Another way Blogger was used was to put our storyboard onto Blogger by photographing each screen shot on the storyboard and post it onto our Blog.
In the construction stages of the music video and the ancillary texts, we used final cut express to edit our footage and also create the effects on our music video, and then for the ancillary texts we used Photoshop to create the general layout as well as add on some effects to the still images we had taken. These were all used for the evaluation stages as we could look at everyones media products and start to give and receive feedback on everything leading up to the group.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
From the start of our music video we started to research in to previous videos as well as researching well known music videos, however after hearing our chosen song, which was Camera Obscura – If Looks Could Kill, we decided to research into music videos. As Camera Obscura come under the Indie Alternative genre, we decided to look into the likes of the Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down and The Verve – Bitter Sweet Symphony. After researching into music videos such as these we came up with what we think was the right idea for the type of genre and song. Our general idea links in with parts of The Verve and the Arctic Monkeys, as our general idea was to challenge some forms and conventions as we decided to make our entire music video narrative based and link it to the lyrics in some ways. I feel this was achieved as the end media product worked well, however this was taken into consideration as we looked into Goodwin's points and decided to follow that, but also go against the normal structure of a music video which boosted me into wanting to create a music video that challenged conventions in a different but good way.
As Goodwin's points were a good guideline to follow the music video started by looking into Camera Obscura's real music video and looking at it in a different context, as there actually music video shows a lot of effects of mirror image and is set in quite a cheerful way, however we decided to change that around and look at the lyrics in a more depressing way, which worked well as the lyrics were very flexible, as in the way they could be perceived either in a good or bad context. This followed Goodwin's points as the lyrics and visuals were very linked such as one lyric says 'Tell me when it all went wrong' and this is as the main character is taking abuse from local thugs. As we decided on this Narrative structure for out music video, and we still needed to link the video to some of the lyrics and music, so when it came to filming we needed to focus on the main character and get across the point that he is having the worst day ever and before that his life wasn't interesting at all. This is where we use other media products in our music video as the editing worked well in our music video as the pace of the song matches the video with shot changes and the general pace of the video from start to finish. Another way in which we change a normal convention of a music video was that I changed the music video from colour or natural light to black and white or sepia all the way through the video, and this was a changed that I feel has boosted the video, as it changes the mood to what sounded right from the lyrics and the music. Another way we've used kept the music video flowing was different shot types and kept to some conventions of narrative music videos by keeping the music video interesting and changing the style of the music video to keep the audience happy, this was made by using tracking shots, low angled shots, match on action etc. just so the video has a bit of differentiation when it is actually just focusing on one character. Another factor that we had to take into account was the location and settings of our music video, this also contributed to producing a different and watchable music video, as the setting went with the style, genre and mood of the song as well as making the audience see this, such as choosing the park in Newmarket worked well with the style as it was a long lonely walk to emphasize his bad day as well as the walk way of establishing the gang of youths then as the main character gets closer they start to make his bad day get even worse but this kind of urban location was great for getting different angles and shots, but also gave it a feel of loneliness as if something should be happening.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
First of all from the music video, we represented it in a more depressing mood by using black and white effects as well as the narrative based effect of showing up the depressing mood to represent the song, as our general idea was to show this character having the worst day of his life when everything feels as if there against him and he's on his own. To show this loneliness we need to represent him in his own world, tracking shots as well as medium close ups were very effective to show how the character is represented. Also from the locations of having wide angled shots as well as long to medium shots really emphasized the narrative.
Next was to create our ancillary texts or our Digi-pack, which was our DVD/CD cover as well as a magazine advert, we decided to link both with our music video. We started to discuss our DVD/CD cover and decided to keep the theme of the video, as we decided to put the main character on the front of the cover. This was based upon the look as well as the genre as it had an indie alternative feel to it. We decided to use the main character standing in the middle of a high street staring at the camera, as I took up about half of the shot. We then decided to play around with effects on Photoshop and ended up on finding a way of keeping the genre of indie as well as our narrative structure of this loneliness by blurring the background in the high street and keep the focus on the emotion of the character which links in well with our music video as well as keeping the colour scheme the same of a black and white indie feel. For the other sides to the cover we decided to included the main features such as the song list, but we also decided on bringing in the two lead singers which are two women. As we still needed to keep the style and emotion we decided to keep the colour scheme going of black and white throughout the whole cover, however we didn't want to confuse the viewers so we made sure the two singers were in the right place as we had them in a grimy location with graffiti in the background, as we faded in the colour of the graffiti to give it more effect. The colour of purple was a big choice as we used this on the graffiti and the titles which was an effective choice to have a bit more alternative view which was a good link with the video. The last media product was the magazine advert which didn't turn out as we was hoping it would due to time issues. The magazine advert worked to some extent as we kept the theme of the main character as our main focus to keep a good combination and connection throughout the whole media product. The magazine advert was the only product not to follow the black and white theme however we included the DVD/CD in the advert but didn't follow the colour, this would be the only media product not to follow the same structure from the music video.
Overall we used an effective combination that suited the genre, as we also used an effective pattern to transfer the mood and style of our video onto our ancillary texts, as we've focused on getting the point of this bleak look into life when nothings going right around you, so I feel the combination worked well except for some time constraints, and one main focused that worked well in the end was a look into colour, which was a good representation into life.
What have you learnt from audience feedback?
Our group feedback for all of our media products were generally good and productive feedback, however the main thing that I can pick out is the way in which having no lip sinking and a whole music video narrative based worked, viewers were quite pleased with the outcome. This big feedback helped me to learn that you don't have to do everything by the books and your own ideas and challenging some conventions do work, especially if they create a different or bold music video that genuinely works. Feedback was quite helpful throughout the whole project as we posted our roughcut version on our blog, and then the feedback given by other groups was very effective as a lot of feedback was about the lighting of our video as we tried to film at dusk each time, but it started to get dark in some shots, so this was the reason we altered our video into a more sepia black and white look, which was an effective change to highlight our genre and to heighten the narrative.
The feedback on our ancillary texts were also helpful, as we could see what we've done well and what others may not like, such as generally the feedback was that everyone seemed to like the black and white theme and the link with our video and our ancillary texts. Such as how we used effects to create our meaning in both video and text form. Another useful feedback that we received was about our ancillary texts and the CD/DVD cover, how we used the two lead singers, and how a lot of the feedback told us that people were confused that they were in the cover, however I feel we needed to include the band members and show something different however this will need explaining on the blog. Another piece of feedback was the criticism of our magazine advert as we had not put enough on it such as information and rating, however timing was an issue as we didn't have time to finish the product.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In the researching and planning stages we used mostly web based research, which included websites such as Youtube, music director websites and Google. But the main website was Blogger, which was used to create this type of diary of research and planning to keep our findings in order as well as sharing with other groups. Researching was mainly due to looking into previous music videos such as the Artic Monkeys and Camera Obscura's video which was good for brainstorming. Where as Google was used to get facts and different images of each style of some different music videos to put onto the blog. Blogger was useful for bouncing ideas of other people and starting to build up feedback from other groups to see what we were doing right and wrong, as well as develop other ideas from feedback. Another way Blogger was used was to put our storyboard onto Blogger by photographing each screen shot on the storyboard and post it onto our Blog.
In the construction stages of the music video and the ancillary texts, we used final cut express to edit our footage and also create the effects on our music video, and then for the ancillary texts we used Photoshop to create the general layout as well as add on some effects to the still images we had taken. These were all used for the evaluation stages as we could look at everyones media products and start to give and receive feedback on everything leading up to the group.
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
FEEDBACK
Magazine Ad
- Tour dates good idea
- not enough information about actual cd
- good how images relate to video
- like the image on the cd can see the product.
- website for more information good
- red hard to see on background
- usally see ratings on magazine adverts
- wearing same clothes in both images relates well
CD
- more information on production
- no age ratings
- one image relates to video and two images show that there are other videos or sings so promotes all
- promotes artist well
- more information would have made it more realistic
- good colour scheme - purple is easier to read than red
emily pippa hollie
- Tour dates good idea
- not enough information about actual cd
- good how images relate to video
- like the image on the cd can see the product.
- website for more information good
- red hard to see on background
- usally see ratings on magazine adverts
- wearing same clothes in both images relates well
CD
- more information on production
- no age ratings
- one image relates to video and two images show that there are other videos or sings so promotes all
- promotes artist well
- more information would have made it more realistic
- good colour scheme - purple is easier to read than red
emily pippa hollie
Digi Pack DVD/CD Cover
Feedback: really like it,much love for things like this, keep the good work up. some of the images by looking at your video look out of place, the girls having nothing to do with your video and seems they have no reason to be there so should be changed. other than that very good and i like it x
I like the gritty feel to the cover it links to the style of the video and over feel runs through out digi pack and video, great stuff guys keep it up
