Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We gathered audience feedback on two separate occasions regarding our music video, first we questioned people on their views towards our rough cut. After we made amendment and finished our video we again asked people on their opinions of the final piece in order to make our final changes.

Our rough cut in all honesty was poor as we had only a performance aspect. Therefor when we gathered our feedback it was fairly critical with comments such as...

• "Hard to see the story line"
• "Mish mash of shots"
• "Incorrect casting"

Although negative these comments proved to be extremely help full as it gave us the drive to improve it significantly. Therefor after hours of filming and editing we had a full video which as a group we were all proud of. once this was complete we again gathered feedback from our peers by using different medias.

• We shared our work on social medias such as facebook and twitter, and asked for people to leave comments. This form was a great way to get our friends and family to view the video easily and quickly.
• Showed people the video and then interviewed them for their opinions.
• A member of our group has a youtube account with almost a thousand subscribers, therefor the video was uploaded on there and we received some extremely help full replies.
• Our video was also played to our class mates and we all shared our constructive criticism with each other, this was the most help full form of feedback as all of us were media student we understood what the video needed and could advise each other.
• It was also uploaded onto a forum in which people with an interest in the area can view it and leave comments. 

We decided that it would be a good idea to film he interviews that we held. This was due to the fact that we could then look back over them and also show the criticism that we were able to build upon. The reaction to the Viewers can be seen in the youtube clip bellow.


The main feedback that we received was that some people felt that although the filming and editing was superb the actual story line was still in places hard to grasp. They said that this was due to the wide variety of shots and scenes. Therefore we decided to lose some of the scenes such as one of a man driving. After this the video clearly had more of a obvious theme running throughout.

Many people after seeing the improved version of the video believe that the intro to the song was one of the most effective parts and, Matt's extremely impressive computing skills allowed for us to use very technical equipment in order to film as if the camera was going through the window. The intro was very important as it allowed for the viewer to get an immediate impression of professionalism.

Another main cause for concern was the realism of the actors and the way they played their instruments, the lead singer and drummer were both perfectly in time, however some of the keyboard and guitar shots were not being played correctly. This however was easy to correct with some shots simply being re filmed and other edited to the time of the music. Also we used some shots of myself using the mixer and headphones in order to fill up any spaces where the instruments were completely out of time with the music.

We found that it was very important to record all the feedback we received weather by video or on paper. This meant that we could go back and look over them at anytime to insure that we were making the improvement necessary.


After the effects that the feedback had upon our music video we decided to use it with our Ancillary tasks also. And once again it had a extremely positive impact as many people believed that our initial idea of the album cover being of a car in a abandoned car parked had to many similarities between the single. This therefor made it look like a single cover compared to a album cover that is supposed to represent all the songs in the album. This knowledge then gave us a far wider scope to work with in terms of creative ideas and we came up with the idea of using ink in water, which can be seen in our final Digi Pak.

• Bellow you can see a video I made showing the difference between our video before and after our second round of feedback. It is very helpful to show the changes we have made.

Evaluation Question 2

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

I believe that not only are both our music video and digi pak high quality but also have a very professional finish, this therefor means that it has a strong house style throughout. The use of colour is one of the main parts of this and we have used it effectively within the music video and also the digi pak.   

 

The key area in which the main product and ancillary tasks combine is within the use of bright colours. it can be clearly seen in the way we choose the outfits and included the colour powder scene. This is then transferred to the ancillary task in the use of the coloured food dye. 

We did some research by asking people if they felt that the three products (video, album cover and advert) could realistically be related to the same artist. the feedback was positive with most people saying that they could see a correlation between the three. The theme of youth was said to be evident throughout with the 'modern' and 'fun' style that we used to create them.

For a band it is important to a wide variety of media to advertise there work, with this in mind it is evident that we have created a realistic and professional single that could be released to the public.

Evaluation Question 1

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

For our A2 media coursework my group decided to go about creating a music video and Digipak. We chose this as we believed it would go well with the strengths of the group in the way of filming and editing. At the beginning of the research stage we looked into other artist music videos such as Eminem’s ‘Stan’ and ‘21 Guns’ by Green Day. After in-depth research into the music video marked we set about deciding upon a song to use each member had their own idea’s to put forward with songs such as ‘Time Is Running Out’, by Muse and Miles Kane’s, ‘Come Closer’ all given consideration however we decided it was important to use one that the entire group believed in and that we could all see a final product with this song. Therefore we decided upon ‘Young Blood’ by The Naked and Famous. This song had the potential to allow us to use the ideas that we had for the narrative. The main theme is that of young life and we wanted to incorporate scenes of people simply enjoying themselves while they are young before the stresses of adult life take over. When looking at the conventions of music videos we were aided by Andrew Goodwin’s ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ which gave us an understanding of the rules when making a music video.

In nearly all music videos it is necessary for several close up shots of the lead singer, especially if there is a performance aspect to the video. This gives the lead singer authority and makes them the focal point of the video for the viewer. In The Kaiser chiefs ‘I Predict a Riot’ and Kings of Leon’s ‘Sex on Fire’ there are clear examples of this. Therefore we made sure that our final piece had close up shots of our lead singers (Becky) face throughout the video. We also thought that we could add our own aspect to this and often included fading the features of her face as we started or ended the shot. A good example of this can be seen at the end of the video as the music dies out her features become less clear. You can see in the two examples that it is important that the singers face is in the center of the shot, which again is something that we incorporated into our product.     

By using a mix of performance and narrative we challenged the conventions of many indie rock videos as the majority use one or the other. Kings of Leon shoot their entire film in the same venue which is a complete contrast to the wide variety of locations that we have used. Similar to Miles Kane in his video for ‘Come Closer’, however Kane is present in most of the shots whereas we only have the band members performing in the performance parts. Our Narrative section can be much more closely linked with that of Arcade Fire's 'The Suburbs'. We found many of our ideas from watching this video, although it is entirely narrative it has a theme of (young life) similar to that of the song we had chosen.

We saw that videos such as ‘The suburbs’ and ‘I predict a riot’ had shots of groups of people enjoying themselves in ways such as a pillow fight or BB gun fight. Therefore we decided to include the color powder scene. Color powder is something we had planned to use from the beginning. Similar to Arcade Fire we shot our fight in a empty car park and just asked the group of people we had brought to have fun whilst we filmed and the outcome was successful and shows well the theme of young people having fun. In ‘I Predict a Riot’ there is a shot of the people walking in holding their pillows. This we realized was very important as it is similar to an establishing shot and gives the viewer an idea of what is happening, for this reason we filmed the group walking into the car park clearly holding the powder in their hands.

 

Another scene from the Arcade fire video that we liked was where the boys are riding their bikes through the street. It again shows the theme of (young life) and s a typical activity that the younger generation enjoy. This was the exact situation we wanted to film. Hence we used several shots of bikes and scooters, although we decided to film in a skate park rather than a street as it looked better and more interesting when the rider could perform tricks. The shot of a man on a scooter doing a flip over the ramp is not only extremely effective but also clearly related to the shot from Arcade Fires video. Personally this is my favorite shot of our entire video, as it really captures the skater’s enjoyment, I also believe that it could easily be placed in any professional music video and would not look out of place. We used natural lighting in the same way as Arcade Fire did to give a realistic impression of everyday life, in order to get this impression we dressed the actors in outfits that they would normally wear when out in a skate park. Another shot we took was of Dom (who is a member of the group) in a BMX bike hall, once more we filmed him performing tricks in order to make it more interesting to the viewer.

For the performance aspect the conventions of music videos showed that it was important to show some long shots of the entire band, this can be seen throughout the majority of performance based videos, including Kings of Leon’s ‘Sex on Fire’ and The Killers ‘Human’ in which you can clearly see the entire band. In our video we added in some shots of the band with as always the lead singer at the front and the drummer at the back which is what the conventions of music videos show us.  This is important to most music videos but to ours it’s even more so, as the band members do not feature in the narrative which takes up a large amount of the video and therefore could lead them to becoming a side part instead of the main feature. Though with the long shot it gives the feel of a live performance. This gives the audience a feeling of being there and allows them to recognize the band and establish a difference between that and the story of what happens in the narrative. The lead singer is always the focal point of a band however the other members also serve an important role and a few close up shots of them needed to be included, the shot of the drummer, through the drums is very powerful as it seems as if you are part of the kit, the smoke machine and positioning of the lights create a surreal effect.  In the performance most bands seem to have a distinctive look in their videos and in fact throughout all the media they use, the killers have a smart and sophisticated style where as kings of Leon are much more rough and ready. With this in mind we went for a country rock look with the lead singer and guitarist both sporting checked shirt and denim bottoms, and the keyboard player (myself) wearing a denim jacket.

 

The lighting was extremely important so we chose to use flood lights, these were very powerful construction lights for building with halogen bulbs that give off a yellow light which is perfect for what we wanted. It was our plan to use the same approach that Huse Monfaradi took when filming the music video to the Arctic Monkeys 'Brianstrom'. There is a section in our song where the lead guitarist played by Luke has a singing role and the lighting behind him creates a great intensity to a part of the song which is slow but has a lot of meaning “count up all our mistake” this is a line from his vocals which is quite intense and the lighting behind him almost has a religious quality, like he is giving an answer to the viewer. It is very similar to the lighting used in the video for brainstorm as you can see.

One way in which we went against the conventions of music videos is in the inclusion of steel wool photography. I have never seen this type of effect used in any music videos before. Steel wool photography is actually a photo you get from spinning lighted steel wool. Which we were at first planning on using for the Digipak.  However the actual motion of making the picture is intriguing and we decided to film it and add it to the video. It is important that it was dark with low lighting due to this allowing the sparks from the wool to almost look like stars in the sky. We would not have put this in just because it looked good however it has a meaning, showing a young person discovering something new.

 

The most important convention is that of editing with the beat and tempo of the song. As the video starts we see a man in his car turning on the radio and as he finds the right station the music comes on which was detailed editing, again as the main drum beat kicks in we go from a darkened hall with shadowy figures to a bright light stage with the members of the band clearly visible. This editing give a real impact to the viewer as when the beat kicks in the video also comes to life.

Ancillary Task

            With the Ancillary tasks we set about our research by looking at other artists posters and album covers, first we looks at the artist we were using The Naked and Famous. We noticed that they used the same image for the front and back of their album along with the poster. Although we realised that it was very important to have a house style along the media we decided not to use the same picture instead similar or different photos of the same scene.

More extensive research showed that very few artists use photos of the band members for their album Digipaks, instead it is often a scene or an object. What we did find that most used was a band logo, so we found The naked and Famous logo and used that as the base of our Digipak.  At first we believed it necessary to link the Digipak to the Video its self, however once we realized that the album cover and advert represented the entire album not just the single our ideas for the them became far more inventive.

We tested an idea of using food coloring in water which when photographed the vibrancy and contrast of the colors gave a great effect. Henceforth we decided upon using this as a theme for our ancillary task.  You can see the outcome from this and also the clear house style throughout. The picture itself although having a very professional look was simple enough to take it was just the timing that was important.

The magazine advert like many others is the same photo as the album cover; this creates an immediate link between the two. Our research it magazine adverts such as The Stone Roses advert which you can see led us to discover it is important to add where you can purchase the product there for we included the logo for Play.com and Itunes. We also decided to add in the logo for Facebook and Twitter as they both would be popular social networking sites of the age group for our target audience. The final addition was the incorporation of a release date which is found on all music magazine adverts.

Evaluation Question 4

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

Glogster

I decided to use the program Glogster in order to present some of the videos. It is a brilliant website for effectively portraying a selection of information, pictures and videos in a fun and easy to use format. When you first create your account you are offered a variety of possible layout plans, of which you choose what is most suitable for your purpose. Once you have chosen your design you are presented with a screen which you can see to the left. You then start to add your own media. In my case I added, videos which was very simple as you just drag them from your file into the screen. Once on the main screen you can then adjust the size and positioning of the video by simply using your mouse to drag and spread the media. In order to attach Pictures from your files you use the same method. Then you can add other animations such as moving lips or quotations in order to create a more aesthetically pleasing piece. This program is a good example of technology that is easy to use however then also offers and professional and interesting display for the user.

Blogger

In order to present our work we have all used the program Blogger. It is perfect for the information we need to deliver to the examiner. You are able to upload videos, images and text as well as other media such as Glogster. There are other advantages to using this program such as its accessibility to the public, this therefore means that the examiner can access my work with ought any media needing to be printed and sent off. By creating a series of posts as you progress through the year shows the advancements that you have made and how the research affects your own products. It is a very simple to use and each post can show a different aspect of your project and the labels allow for it to be easily accessed by the viewer.

Final Cut

Final Cut is the program that we used to edit our music video. I also used it to create various other videos which show the prgression of our work with examples such as the target audience interviews and the feedback from filming sets. It is brilliant in the ease of cutting and edditing footage. And it allows for people without access to profesional eqipment to make their own videos.The ability to choose what part of the clips you want allows for you to pick what parts you wish to use easily and then combine a variety of different shots together in order to create your final piece. The screen on the left shows the original clip of which you can take certain parts to add to your final piece which is shown on the right screen. You simply drag the part you want from the left screen into the strip at the bottom and it can then be viewed in the other. 

PhotoShop

 Photoshop has been used to make some visual affects in order to show the progress that we have made throughout the year. It allows us to edit photos for the posters and makes it easy to label photos to show our progress. I also used this program to create the ancillary tasks as it as influential in ending with a professional and clear finish.
We used this program it create the album cover and poster, after taking the original photo it allowed for us to change the brightness and contrast by simply dragging the slider to one side. Also the tools that our can see to the left were extremely helpful as the crop tool meant that we did not have to include images that were irrelevant to the point that we were trying to make. Also the line and text tool meant that it was easy to explain the pictures that we wee showing.           

After Effects

 This was another programme that we used for the video and it is a very advanced piece of software. It allowed for the MTV logo to be placed in the corner it was also used for the scene in the intro where the camera seems to go through the glass window.

Nikon D3100 camera

The Nikon D3100 was a very capable camera and allowed for us to take shots that would have previously been unavailable to us. One of the main features that we used was its ability to change the shutter sped which allowed for us to create steel wool photography which was used in our music video. 

Focus pull was another type of shot that we used often during the video, it is a very effective technique as it allows for the attention f the audience to be drawn to a specific part or person on the screen. We especially used this with the close up shots of nature, such as the rain drops, leaves and twigs.   

Canon 550d

This camera was owned by one of the members of our group and was what we used for the majority of our filming. Having two cameras came in very useful as it allowed us one person to film a certain shot whilst someone else could film another at the same time.

       We had access to a variety of lenses including

• 8mm lens - this is a fish eye lens and as it is a acquired taste we used it sparingly, one example of this in use is where we filmed the drummer through the drum set.
• 18- 55mm lens - this is the standard lens that comes with the camera, being the easiest to use it was perfect for some of the quick shots  
• 50mm lens - although this lens is not able to zoom, the wide aperture, allows more light in and creates a shallow depth of field and allows the subject to drift in and out of focus.
• 75mm – 300mm lens - this lens was used for extreme close ups as it has the best zoom function.

Apple Mac

We were provided with apple macs by the school which came in very useful as they are extremely advanced computers which support the complex programs we needed to use. Two members of the group also own MacBook pro's which made the editing process easier as we could work on it from home and then bring the work into school.

Glidecam 5000

This piece of equipment was arguably the most valuable as it all our filming a provisional finish. When we first started our major problem was keeping the camera steady therefor this steadicam allowed us to film crisp and stable shots. This really gave the video a professional and high-tech feel.

  Jessops tripod

This tripod supplied by the school was excellent for the shots in which the camera did not need to move therefore it could be stable and perfectly still.