Evaluation 4 (By Emily, Vicky, Sophie and Voke)

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

The equipment and media technology we used through out the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages and all three of our platforms were:

Final cut
Photo shop
Mpeg stream clip
Quick time
Google
You tube
Camera's - school video camera and Canon HD eo3od
Tripod
MTV
NME
Picasion
Prezi
Mind maps
HTML codes
PowerPoint
Face book
Wall wisher - AuthorSTREAM
Apple Mac
Blogger


Camera and Tripod

First of all we had to film the music video. The equipment used to film this were two camera and a tripod. The first camera we used was a Canon HD eo3od. This camera had great lighting on it and the pixels made it great to film with however the battery did not hold enough space for the amount of filming we wanted to do. Therefore we used our Media teachers camera that she supplied. It was a video camera and so therefore it was made to cope with a lot of filming where as the other camera was a camera with a video recording on it. The camera we used from school was just as great and had a tape in it where it recorded all of the filming we had done. This way it was really easy for us to upload the filming onto the computer. Once the filming was uploaded on to the computer it was really easy for us to cut parts out that we needed.







Final cut

Final cut was one of the main programmes that were used. This was really important for us as we had to know exactly how to use it and how to use it well. Our music video was going to be produced and made great by the editing of the video. First of all we had to upload our filming we had taken to the final cut pro to edit our video. A short clip from the programme "Jing" is shown on how Myself and Vicky edited the music video. As the editing was our role within the group. It shows a number of different techniques we used such as uploading the video, editing it and adding in transitions.

To be able to edit the video we had to import our video file into Final cut. Once all films were imported we were then able to use clips from all the files to make our music video. We also needed to drag the audio (the song) that we were making a music video to into Final cut. Once we dragged that in we locked it on the side so that it couldn't change or be replaced when we were dragging down clips of filming to edit. Things such as overlays and cross dissolves were used. These had to be added in by pressing the effects button and clicking them. Cross dissolves allow smoother movement in and out of clips and  at the bottom of the screen there is a button that has a black line on it; this is used to create an overlay. overlays show two clips on the screen at the same time with one being slightly more faded so that it is clear to see both clips. These are both demonstrated on the Jing below. We added in a warning sign as we were using flashing lights in our music video. And with our research we had found out that any music videos with flashing lights usually have a warning sign at the beginning. We placed this into Final cut on a different line so we were able to cut it and make sure it was shown for the right amount of time. After that we started to cut down the film into the sections that we needed. To do this there is another screen that can be used for cutting certain parts needed out. So we set the in and out points of the filming that we wanted and dragged it down to place it into our video. I did this again and again to keep producing the music video with all the different filming we had carried out. This was really efficient and made it really easy to do what we needed to do.
Once we had created the music video we started to change the opacity of each image. By clicking the opacity button I was able to change  the different colours of the video to make  it look more professional.

Final cut was also used before we had started filming. Originally before filming we had all created a story board together with the ideas of how our music video was going to look and what was going to happen in our music video. Although the drawing of the story didn't use any technology, we then inserted all the pictures onto final cut and made an animated video out of them. This way we could see what our music video was going to look like in drawings before filming.



Quick time and MPEG stream clip

After finishing the editing and once we were happy with the video we had to put it into quick time movie and then export it into mpeg 4 so that it was the correct format to be able to be put onto Blogger. Quick time movie is what the video is exported to after Final cut. However Blogger does nt accept quick time movie videos and therefore we then had to import it to Mpeg4 stream clip so that we were certain that after it had been changed it would show on our blogs. The video its self is named Finalcutvideo.mov.
Photoshop

Photoshop was used to produce our digipak. Our progress of the ancillary tasks is shown in a Jing video as well as our music video. We used Photo shop to create a magazine advert and our digipak, which included the front and back cover of an album and the inside cover and the CD holder.

The making of the digipak was Sophie's role within the group, while myself and Vicky produced the Magazine advert once our editing had been finished. Firstly what is demonstrated in the video is how Sophie made the inside page of our album. We already had the images that we wanted to use by screen grabbing them from our music video and changing the brightness of them so that they all have the same brightness, we then placed one on top of the other to show them in place.  After having the pictures we used the idropper tool that colour picks, to pick Jake's hair colour and by using the pain bucket tool we coloured the back ground in the same colour as Jake's hair. The font we created was from www. DAFONT.com The paint splat effect Sophie demonstrates is involved in that font. To get this we increased the size of the font and rotated it across the screen. After that Sophie shows how we made the back page. We screen grabbed an image from the beginning of our video and transformed it to fit the page. We changed the contrast and colouring of the image to create a better looking, more professional look to the image. To make our actor look better we used tools such as the spot healing tool that helped touch up blemishes our actor had. We then moved onto the front page were we used the same effects to make the image look better and more professional. We added text to the front cover using a font called "code bold". To add finishing touches we used a gradient tool and coloured it black to add a strip down the side of the CD. This is commonly found on all CD's.

Youtube, Google, MTV and NME

For our research into music videos and digipaks, and our overall research and planning we spent a lot of time using websites such as Google, You tube, MTV and NME. You tube was used to find research into music videos, when we were looking for the particular song we wanted our music video to be made to. We went fro the genre INDIE. We wanted a song that wasn't very well known that we could bring to life with out music video. The only way we were going to pick the best, most suitable video for music video was by doing research and looking at lots of videos and waying up the positives and negatives about each. Once we had found the song, we then used You tube to find features of music videos that we would want to use for inspiration such as  Pixxie Lott- Its all about tonight for overlays and Kanye West- All of the lights for the lighting and fast cuts. We did this because we wanted our research and planning to be thorough, we wanted to know exactly what features we could use and how to do them. This is why we looked at different features and tutorials as to how to carry them out on Final cut.
We used Google to research into images and facts about the band our song was produced by Bloc Party. Google was where we found the facts and statistics in our research and planning. We needed to find out things such as the font used by Bloc party as we needed to make sure the font we used was the exact same to keep a house style throughout the albums. We also used it to find out information on things such as our target audience. Once we had found our target audience and the genre we were catering for we used website such as MTV and NME to find out what music channel our music video could feature on. MTV and NME are the websites that were going to give us the most relevant information on the genre that we were creating for. From these websites we found facts such as where Bloc party's songs have recently been in the charts and opinions from the audience about Bloc party's songs.

Mind maps, Picasions and Prezis

After doing all this research, programmes such as mind maps, picasions and prezis were used to show the information we had found and to start planning our music video. I used mind maps when planning what an INDIE genre is and what it consists of. This helped me bounce off of what I had already wrote and helped me think of more and more ideas. I used picasions and prezis to make presentations about things such as what music channels are suitable for my genre and the conventions of a music video.This meant that i could easily go back to them and see facts and information about the conventions of a music video if i needed to. The prezi's were quite easy to make and it allowed us to put in pictures as well meaning we had even more information to be able to back to and use.  I used Picasion mainly for uploading a lot of images, this way i could make a little slide show that presented them all.

  
HTML coding 

HTML codes were used to make my blogg look presentable. The blog is what I am storing all my research , planning and work on so therefore I wanted it to look great and presentable. By adding different codes such as drop down boxes and boxes with a scroll bar to put information in my blog automatically looked so much more well looked after.
Face book, PowerPoint and Author stream 

Here Sophie made a wall for our audience to comment on

During the evaluations I have used programmes such as Face book, PowerPoint and Author stream. I used Power points to make Power print presentations to show my scripts for a video that we have created.This means that when people are watching the video they can also read the script if they wanted to. I also used a PowerPoint presentation to show how our group made the digipak and music advert. This meant I was able to put all our screen grabs in a presentation and present them better.  I used Face book and Author stream to get feedback about my music video from not only people of the genre we were creating but a wider range of people as well. This was a great way of receiving feedback as it was very natural and the people commenting were able to be anonymous so they could say exactly what they wanted to. Positive or negative.

 Blogger 

Blogger was the website that we used to store all our information on, with out blogger we wouldn't have course work. We were able to make Posts that could include links, images, text and videos. Blogger allowed us to create really informative, well presented posts that were going to help get across to our audience what our music video was.

Apple Mac

The Apple Mac was what we used to be able to use the Internet, Final cut, Blogger and other things such as Photo shop. The Apple Mac was easy to use once taught. To print screen things we had to use the grab tool. And we had change alot of pictures from TIF's to JPEG's. The Apple Mac was where we were able to log onto Blogger which stored out Media A-level.



Videos

Videos were made a lot during the creation, research, planning and evaluations. A video was made on Final cut first as we had to produce a rough cut, then a final cut. I then created two videos for my evaluation 1 and 2.

Evaluation 3 (By Emily, Vicky, Sophie and Voke)

What audience feed back did you receive?

When creating the three platforms that we did we knew that audience feedback was vital. We needed to know what people thought of it and if they felt they would buy the music video.
For our rough cut we asked our media class and teacher to look at it and make notes. Make notes on what they felt was great about the music video and what needed improving. We used our media class as we were sure that they were going to know what went well and not only what to improve but how they felt it could be made better. Although our teacher isn't in our target audience for the music video like our media class we knew that by not only getting good point and bad points from her but sitting down with her and analysing the video and how we could make it better would be a great. We received feedback from the media teacher and students saying things such as: "Great story line" "Nice cuts" "The use of lip syncing in the video added great realism" some negatives of the music video were: "The strobe lighting follows on for too long" "the editing needs to be slightly faster and more like your animatic" "The signs are shown for too long". Over all our media students and teacher enjoyed the story line of the music video and the transitions that we used but felt that our cuts could be faster and our actual footage could be shown less frequent and for not so long.

 
After our rough cut was edited and we had made improvements we then put it on "Face book" for the general public to comment. We felt that this would help us receive a range of comments rather then comments from media students and teachers. The comments were varied and helped us a lot as each comment was different and praised us on different things and felt we could so better on different things as well. Many of our friends on "Face book" are music fans anyway so it was great to hear there view and I knew that their view would be critical yet realistic.
Here are the comments we received from out music video below. Overall they were all quite positive and gave us good insight to what we did well. The majority of people liked the story line, felt that the lip syncing when we have a split screen of both our actor and actress was great and that the new chorus had fast paced cuts that matched the tempo of the music. Here it was clear to see we had improved on our editing since the rough cut.

Here Sophie made a wall for the viewers that were not on Face book.




We also had a small private viewing for both of the media classes to view each others final music videos and comment on them. This was really insightful as it was nice to see people enjoying our music video and being extremely analytical while watching it. Our media class all wrote their comments on a piece of paper for myself and the group to analysis. Our comments from the rough cut were extremely different to the new comments. The new comments from our media class were that they enjoyed the new fast up beat chorus, they felt that our video as a whole was a lot more clearer and the lip syncing had really been improved. They also felt that the genre of the music video was really captured and shown through acting. This shows that we really researched our target audience and created ways of showing it through our music video.

For our digipak we went through the process of asking for our teachers view as we knew that it would be critical but valuable. Her experience and her critical view helped when showing the digipak to her because we knew that we were sure to get the truth about the positives and the negatives of the digipak. Our teacher felt that our music advert was great but our CD cover didn't match it well enough, this is when we decided to create two digipaks. This way our music advert would cater for both. We researched artists that had two covers fro their CD's and Albums such as Jessie J and Cold play and felt that we were in the correct position to do so. After doing this our media teacher felt that we had shown a great use of skills when making thew digipak and music advert and that we linked them really well together.

I feel that our audience felt that our music video suited our genre well, was suitable for our target audience and captured a interesting story line. Overall 80% of our target audience felt that our music video was a great representative of the song and about 40% of that statistic meet our target audience and fit into the genre we aimed to please. We feel we have met the demands of a INDIE music video however with out our target audience feed back we wouldn't have been able to do this.

Here is a video of what people thought of our music video and digipak:

Evaluation 2 (By Emily Fry)

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Our music genre is Indie.
A typical target audience for our genre would be a boy ages 16-25 that enjoys listening to music such as Cold play, Oasis and The Killers. He would enjoy going to festivals and talking to friends about different bands they like and dislike. He would go out and "chill" in places such as Camden and London where he is able to skate and look at sights and listen to music freely. He would read magazines such as NME and wear skinny jeans with boots and long coats. Very much how our actor Jake dresses.

Here is my script to my video that I have produced showing how effective the combination of our main product and ancillary texts are.

Presentation1

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WHAT WOULD WE CHANGE?

If i was able to go back and re-design all three platforms there would be a couple of things I would change about all.

The video - I feel that our group should have planned much more in advance, as it was our first time filming and editing. We underestimated how important the editing was and didn't give our selves enough time to edit as well as we could. Some things we hadn't planned properly and missed out meaning we had to go out and re-film some things. I would probably plan our story board better for our final cut and ensure that we got each part of filming done at least twice in different places so that we had a choice to edit. The colouring of our video was bleached out on our actors face so I would try and change that next time round as well. We tried to change it in Photo shop but next time round i will spend longer on it.

The Poster - The poster was our strongest point of our three platforms. We made the poster apply to both of them. I felt that our poster had a great Indie feel to it and that it was well suited to our music video. If we were to change anything I would try and change the pictures on the front to make them clearer.

The album artwork - As we wanted to take images from our music video we were limited on what we could use on our digipak. However we found two great pictures with our actor opening his eyes for the front cover and him closing his eyes for the back cover. The lay out and structure of the album were great. However I would change the colouring of the pictures used if i could do it again. Making them slightly less bleached out.

Evaluation 1 (By Emily Fry)

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

The genre of our media video and promotional package is Indie.The key forms and conventions of a Indie music video are:

- lots of close ups of the artist/band
- low key performances
- the untailored, "i don't care" appearance
- the use of strobe lighting

When looking at the structure and ideas for a Indie music video, we did our research on Andrew Goodwin. His book "The rise on MTV" had some extremely interesting facts and features that we were going to take into consideration for our music video.
- Music videos use the singer both as a performer/narrator and as a character.
This is clear to see in our music video as we have our actor Jake singing through out the whole song as the performer, yet we are still telling a story about his state of flux in his relationship. This being the narrative. Our actor Jake is being both the performer because he is singing and the character as he is also acting out the narrative. Through out the song Jake is singing for example when he is in the chorus he is singing being the performer but he is also showing his frustration and worry by his acting.

Andrew Goodwin also wrote that a music video should “Demonstrate the iconography and genre characteristic within the genre” and that “there is a relationship between lyrics, music and visuals, either illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music” Our music video shows that it is in the Indie genre. With our actor who has been made to look, dress and act Indie. And the song and the lyrics them self. There is also a relationship between the lyrics, music and visuals of our song, illustrating and amplifying the music. We have illustrated mainly in the song for example when the song lyric is "if your right hand is causing you pain, cut it off" we have an overlay of a knife running down an arm while our actor is lip syncing and performing.

We looked at many different Indie music videos before making our music video for research. We looked at videos that showed us different overlays, cuts, lighting, camera work and close ups. For lighting and fast cuts we looked at Rihanna and Kanye West - All of this lights. For overlays we looked at Pixie Lott - Its all about tonight. We also looked at camera work and close ups in The Script- For the first time. Our ideas for lip syncing were taken from a range of Examples song mainly - Kick start, as there are many close ups of him singing and split screens of him and other characters in the narrative.

Online gif maker
Here our the Indie music conventions we used in our music video and ancillary task.

1. Editing - In Indie music videos most editing is quite a fast pace, with a lot of shots in a short amount of time. The cuts are quick and only a few overlays are used. A fade in or fade out or both are usually used in a indie music video. In our music video we have a variety of fast paced shots . Our temp is fast and our shots match this. In the chorus the editing is faster due to the faster tempo. The editing is the fast upbeat part where we use strobe light and cut every two or three seconds for the whole of the editing. Other fast parts of the editing are near the end when "state of flux" is being sung. This is when there are single shots of my self and our actor Jake and the pace of the editing increases with each shot. When wanting to make sure we were getting out editing correct we looked at fast beat songs such as Kanye West "All of the lights". Throughout the whole song the cuts are extremely fast and there are a lot of them.

2. Lighting - The lighting is often made rather then natural light in an indie music video. Either strobe lighting and disco lights or a stage effect when the artist is performing. Low Key lighting is used a lot within a music video. Some of our video is full of ambient lighting due to the time we had to film as we wanted it to be during the day so that the lip syncing our acting was doing was clear to see, how ever the camera we used did not pick up the images well. In our chorus however we were able to use strobe lighting which was fast paced and linked with the beat and timing of the music well. The lighting from our music video was taken from Ellie Golding - Lights.

Creating a gif

3. Camera work- As a lot of Indie videos are performances band members or the artist will usually look into the camera. Shots are usually hand held to give the video a more indie vibe effect. We made sure that our artist Jake was filmed in every scene looking into the camera whilst singing. Making him look into the camera made the music video look more realistic. We also used a number of extreme close ups, medium close ups and long shots to ensure we had a variety of shots for our viewers. This means that the audience and fans watching can easily see who he performer is and will be able to recognise the artist. Long shots and medium shots meant then whilst Jake was lip syncing we could also show his body language and his acting skills. We used a tripod to keep our shots steady

Creating gif

4. close ups - Close ups of the artist are usually used to encourage the fan to buy the CD. Close ups can be used a promotional point as the more close ups of the artist the more the fan is going to want to watch the music video and start liking the song, then buying the CD. We have used many close ups of our artist Jake, at the beginning and at the end of our song. Bloc party also use many close ups of themselves in their music videos.

5. strobe lighting- Strobe lighting can sometimes be used in indie music videos when wanting to add drama and an exciting edge to the video. We have used strobe lighting in our chorus as we wanted to add to the confusion and state of change Jake our actor was going through. We wanted to add more emphasis on his feelings as he doesn't know what to do or how to think any more. We got our idea of the strobe lighting effect from Rhianna and Kanye West, "All of the lights"

6. Lip syncing- Lip syncing is used in mostly every music video especially in Indie music videos as they are mainly performance based. We have made our actor Jake lipsync through out the whole of the song as we wanted our music video to look as realistic as possible. Jake sings through out all the video and very rarely looks away from the camera. We got our inspiration from Cold play. The lead singer in Cold play constantly sings and looks into the camera.

Creating gif

7. split screen- Split screens can sometimes be used in music videos when wanting to get two peoples emotions or reactions across as the same time. We have used ours because we wanted both our actor and actress singing the same line. Our split screen is of the mouths. We got our inspiration from Example's music video where he is trying to get across a male and a females emotions.

Creating gif

8.over lays- Over lays are used in music videos to help transitions between each cuts. We have used a couple of overlays as not many are used indie magazines. Three overlays are used in our music video. For example one time is at the beginning as we are trying to get across some one in pain. "if your right hand is causing you pain cut it off" so while Jake is singing we have an over lay of a knife slicing down a arm. We got the inspiration of overlays from Pixxi lotts music video, although hers is a fast paced song like ours her use of overlays match the pace of her song well.

Online gif maker

9. two people shots- Many Indie music videos tell some sort of story, they usually have some sort of death, romance or loneliness in them. Ours shows loneliness. We have used two people shots to portray this loneliness as our actor Jake is often seen looking back on memories with his partner. Then being seen alone and miserable on his own. The shot of both our actor and actress makes it easier to portray the sense of loneliness and upset he feels without her. For example we have a scene where they are both together sitting at a table talking and it cuts to just him sitting at the table on his own looking dazed and sad. I feel this is a great way to show a past memory but also some ones emotions.

Online gif maker

Ancillary tasks

Music Advert 1 and 2 :

Image of Actor- Images of the character are always shown on the front of the advert. Images of the artist are shown on the front of the music advert because it helps sell the product. When fans see a poster of an artist they like, they automatically know what song and who sings it. This helps promote the music video and encourages viewers to buy the CD. On our poster we decided to use the same picture as our front cover of the CD picture. Just like Jessie J has on her music advert for "Who you are". To make this advert picture we use inspiration from our video and wanted to show some of the same shots that were in our video. We feel that using the same picture for both helps link the music

advert to the CD. For our second poster we still used the same picture but it wasn't our CD digipak front cover.

Ratings- On both of our albums we used star ratings. We made up that MTV, The Guardian and NME rated the music video. By doing this it makes our music advert look more realistic and shows people what other viewers think of it. This could be influencing them to buy it as our ratings were quite high. We found inspiration for this from the magazine advert "Noah and the whale"

Band name and album fonts - We wanted our band name and album font to be exactly the same as the CD and Bloc party's other music adverts. We wanted to do this because we wanted to keep a house style through out our music advert and CSD but also through out all of bloc party's albums and music adverts. For this we obviously used Bloc party as our resource to look at. We looked at all their album covers and magazine adverts.

Quotes- We used Quotes on our music advert as we wanted to show viewers what opther people felt about the music video. We used high end music channels such as NME and MTV to qoute exceptional things about the music video. This way we could ensure that we would be encourageing viewers to buy the CD. We used the magazine advert from Jessie J who had many music channels and news papers commenting on her song.

Business Icons- Business Icons were a perfect way for us to make our music advert look professional and well presented. They show the record labeland business icons that either sponsor or are apart of make the CD. We got the idea of business icons also from Jessie J's music advert.

Promotion of the album ( only on the second poster)- The promotion of the album is on our second music advert as our album cover is the picture on our first music advert. We decided to put our album on the front of the poster to show viewers what the album looks like. This is a great way of promoting the album and encouraging people to buy the CD. From looking at the music advert they will know exactly what the front cover looks like.

Creating gif




Creating gif

Digipak 1 and 2:

Band name on front - We kept the band name on the front of the CD the same as our music advert and other bloc party's albums and adverts because we wanted to keep a house style through out our music advert and our CD but also with the rest of Bloc party's work as well! We looked at all of bloc party's different digipaks and magazine adverts to ensure that thefont was as the same as possible.

Picture of the artist - The picture of our artist Jake is on the front of our cover. We wanted the image to be an image from the music video so viewers could regonise it straight away. Bloc party usually use a picture of scenary from their video how ever we didnt have much scenery footage and therefore we wanted to stick to the theme of using something from the video as much as possible. This was the way we thought of it.

Inside cover- The inside cover for both have been kept quite simple with paint work splattered on it. Bloc Party do a piece of art work on there inside cover so we felt this will add to keeping the house style through out.
CD- Both CD covers have been kept simple, one is black and white and the other is bage and black. These colours are the colours used through out both digipaks.

Creating a gif

Why we used certain conventions on our magazine advert

how we made the digipak and why we used the conventions that we did

ALBUM CONSTRUCTION

More PowerPoint presentations from emily

final magazine adverts

DIGIPAK 1

DIGIPAK 2