Evaluation Questions

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

Our music video follows Goodwin’s points by the music matching the lyrics. This was done with the use of slow action, Lip syncing and choosing to have the video in black and white. Also, the story of our music video matches the lyrics as it about a girl that has left the lead singer of the group which matches the visuals for instance when the lyrics say ”and if I was late, then im sorry” we showed bens girl walking away from there meeting point. The genre of the track was Indie Rock, so to convey this we took inspiration from a song by 3 Doors Down which showed a good band performance which we used in our final product. However our band performance wasn’t as good as we had hoped because we had little musical knowledge. To try to fix this we used individual shots for different instruments and also filmed from slightly weird angles to help cover up the fact we didn’t know how to play the song. In our video we also used some intertextuality through the close up of bens trainer and also when he is writing on his iPhone. The locations we used were kept relatively simple for example we filmed in the woodland area around Long Road. We felt this fit well the genre we were trying to convey as it showed in our research that indie bands use simple and sometimes obscure locations.  The clothing used in our media product also followed conventions of this genre

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

I think that our three products work very well together. The main video is purely in black and white, while the Magazine Ad and DVD Cover are very dulled down colour which still fits well the theme and genre of the video. We added a lot of blur and distortion to our Magazine Ad and DVD Cover. This makes the lead singer feel isolated and alone which fits with the genre and also fits with the video as lead singer ben is almost always pictured alone which adds a link between these products. Our music video and ancillary tasks attract the target audience as they use many conventions of the genre such as loneliness. The locations used in the three tasks are also kept relatively the same for example the video was shot in the woodland around Long Road and the picture on the Magazine Ad was also captured here with sun in the background. The picture on the DVD cover was captured with ben standing on the wall with the sunset and woodland in the background. There is a very clear link between locations used across our products. By using a slightly more colourful image for the Ancillary Tasks we hoped to draw in our target audience more and get them interested in the story/ feel of the video.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We read all the feedback from our peers on our final video. We were very happy with the positive feedback for example the black and white effect had achieved what we had hoped.

One piece of negative feedback was the instruments performance as it was clear we didn’t know how to play instruments. We understand where they are coming however we felt we needed to give it a go as it was one of the conventions of our genre and we tried to use fast cuts to hide the fact we didn’t know how to play.

Some negative feedback we felt was wrong for example “not enough locations”. As a group we felt we had a good number of locations including indoors and outdoors to give it variety and cut between regularly to keep the viewer interested.

We have learnt that we needed to be much more in depth with plan and have a very clear storyline for our video.

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

During the making of our products we used Final Cut to give our video a professional finish in terms of editing. We used cuts and fades as our main transitions, these gave the video a nice flowing feel to without it being too jumpy. Also when editing we used effects such as black and white by adding colour correction to our video and then taking the saturation out. This was used throughout the video. Also in Final Cut we used a shot of ben changing the studio dials and synced it with a volume, this gave the impression that ben had turned up the volume of the track.

During the creation of our magazine ad and DVD cover we used Photoshop to allow us to easily manipulate our picture and add realistic text and logos. We used tools like the smudge tool to erase unwanted background items for example the picture we ended up using had a person in the background and we used this tool to blend them into the background. We also used blur as an effect on almost everything except ben which gives a sense that he is important.

To research the conventions of our genre we used mostly the Internet including sites like Google, Wikipedia and YouTube. These allowed us to find out what video of this genre are likely to look like and took many ideas from them. Whilst filming we used HD video cameras to allow us to record high quality footage very quickly and efficiently. For our Magazine ad and DVD cover we used a professional stills camera to take more photographs for use on them. Using this we were able to take many pictures quickly from different locations to get one that is perfect and so when we edited it we had many options with what picture we used.

  

ancillery texts Before and After editing

 

The Tools used to edit This image : blur, smudge, saturation decrease, flip horizontal, sections on the t-shirt were highlighted then contrast was increased ( blue and white section), text, effects on the texts i.e. colour gradient.

 

For this image we changed the background by removing the girl in the background as it seemed a bit strange and did not suit the story behind the image. we used the same tools as the image above.

Analysis of new student video

U1-46

Lots of locations
Dance routine not bad
Not much emotion shown
Good editing techniques
Good variety of shots
Great start to video with the tree - opening the lense whilst filming
Lip syncing not bad
Costume changes were good
Tree's were a bit random but effective in a way

Directors commentary

Our media product used and matched a few of Goodwin's points of analysis. We believe that the lyrics matched the visuals especially in the first chorus of our re-make of The Kooks - Walk Away, we showed a girl walking off and then someone else walking on to show the guy was late. The lyrics at this point were 'and if I was late, then I'm sorry'. Also, when a couple of members from our group "played" the instruments, we conveyed the point of music matching visuals in a very poor way but we still showed it. We had a few intertextual references such as the iPhone and the adidas trainers. We felt that we had matched genre conventions in a way since the conventions of an indie band would be the style of clothing and the actions within the video itself, and we believe we matched them. We found out these conventions by looking through music video's made by The Kooks. We also promoted the artist slightly through showing his emotions and showing the rest of the band "play" instruments. We did not use much voyeurism, or if any at all, because it wouldn't really match the conventions of the genre, in this case, indie.

We feel we have linked all 3 products; the video, the digipack and the magazine adverts, really well. We edited the ancillary texts so they matched the video, however, with the pictures we took, we felt that it'd be best to make them seem less colourful, rather than make it black and white like the video is. It creates an image of loneliness in a way for the main artist like he is in the video. We're successful at attracting the audience through the way in which Ben is made to feel isolated, so that will make the audience wonder why he is on his own. We believe that on our digipack the use of the film strip with the different images from the video was effective as it gave a more professional touch to our cover. We also were pleased with the font 'Papyrus' that was chosen as it matched the woods in the background, and I believe we used this in the magazine advert as well. We gained the black and white inspiration through our practice magazine advert when we edited Rihanna's - Unfaithful, where we felt a picture of her holding a rose to her face would look better if the rose was in a baby pink colour and the rest was in black and white. Unfortunately, the use of singling out one part of an image for colour wouldn't work. We did try keeping ben in colour and the rest in black and white, yet this looked more of an advert for a thriller film advert rather than a music advert.

From our audience feedback, we were made to feel as though our video wasn't as good as it is. Some of the bad points were understood and we agreed with like the instrument playing wasn't correct, and we explained why this was. However, other comments we were a little unsure about. One piece of feedback was 'there was a split second gap between two clips', we understand that we should've noticed it but to us it looked like a cut from one scene to another, and it wasn't that noticeable. On the other hand though, we were happy with the good points we were given. Another good point we were given from someone was that they liked the way in which Ben barely made eye contact with the camera, and they said it could relate to something that Chris Martin from Coldplay would do in one of his video's with the way he makes the audience focus their attention to him. However, we didn't think this during the idea making stage.

In my opinion, I felt reasonably comfortable with Final Cut as it was relatively easy to use. However, I struggled a bit when we used photoshop because I hadn't really used that before, luckily I had people in the group who understood it more than I did. The tools on photoshop like the lasso tool helped us blur out our mistake of smudging Samanda, we felt it looks affective as it draws more attention to Ben staring out into the distance on his own. Blogger, we felt was easy to use, although I don't think we have as many posts on there as others. We felt that youtube was very useful when looking for ideas to base our video on as we gained idea's from several of The Kooks' songs like Naive. The HD and stills camera's were really easy to use and were really effective for what we wanted to do with them, which was create a professional finish to our products.

Evaluation questions.

In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms of real media products?
Real media products include continuity throughout everything that is being produced and we have also attempted to create something in which continuity is also thorough. Our artists are linked to the indie genre of music and by researching the kook’s past music videos we came up with a few plans and conclusions of as to what they would wear and where their main settings are which were casual clothing and subtle setting. We have managed to use intertextuality within the clothing i.e. Ben’s trainer and we have done this by giving a quick close up at the beginning to show the brand of the trainer also we have done this when Ben uses his Iphone, we zoomed in as he was texting so that there is a clear view of the product. We realised that voyeurism was not needed as it did not match our genre. We managed to create a narrative which was changed throughout the filming process to make it more simplistic using the location within the college premises this was due to the lack of clear planning and the fact that we were unable to get hold of the people that were needed within the video.

However, we managed to compromise with what we had and matched the actions to the lyrics for example in the first verse we film the female walking away from the shot and then Ben walks in the shot to show that he is late and disappointed this is referring back to one of Goodwin’s points on narrative and matching the visuals with the lyrics. Indie genres are usually really simple and filmed in subtle places and so we didn’t really complicate the locations but we made it just black and white to create a more simple but engaging effect to represent the genre.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The combination of our music video and the other products is very effective as it includes continuity which represent the whole genre. The colouring scheme is kept roughly the same so that the products fit with one another.  The video is in black and white but the DVD cover and the magazine advert have a little tint of colour in them to make them look more appealing towards the target audience , this was done by lowering  the saturation of the image itself . For the magazine advert we didn’t want to leave too much concentration on the colour and details of the background so we blurred out a large portion of the trees in the background to make the artist stands out and as for the DVD cover we repeated the same process so that the focus is mainly set on the artist.

 The clothing is still kept the same throughout and the scenery is also kept simple and similar to one another so that an isolated image of the artist is created to match the song itself , isolation is shown through the shot types that were taken by the camera, for example, the magazine advert is an establishing shot of the artist as a whole with a blurred natural background and the DVD cover includes a mid shot of the artist but a horizontal establishing shot of the background which is used for  the back of the DVD cover, again a natural scenery.  All of these effects, tools and filters that have been used on Photoshop , promote the song in their own ways because they give an insight on what the video and lyrics itself may include making it more appealing and engaging for the target audience as emotion and moods are shown through the editing of the ancillary texts  relating to the video.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Our feedback highlighted our good features such as how effective the black and white was and the things that could have been improved such as the instrument playing which we could not do much about as no one in the group was actually able to play the instruments correctly . we tried to compromise with the instrument playing when we filmed by filming at different angles such as low ones to reduce the concentration of the actual playing and focus more on the instrument itself. We also had very short shots of the instruments being played to match the beat of the music which in some parts it failed but others it worked well.

We also learnt that there was more emotion needed to be shown within the artist himself and for this we changed one of the shots where Ben is writing lyrics at the beginning and we zoomed into his eyes to make it look more affective so that there isn’t too much of his facial expression showing but his eyes which the audience may find more appealing to watch rather than just a dull facial expression. This increased the variety of shots we had as we did not have an extreme close up within the video.

 We also got some feedback which we found to be untrue for example there was a lack of locations and costume changes. We did not agree with this feedback as we counted up the number of locations (11) and costume changes (5) and they seem to be enough for a subtle look. Another positive feedback was based  on the way we matched the action of ‘turning up the volume’ to the actual volume of the song being increased within the video and from this we learnt that the connections between the volume /sound of the music and the actions towards it can have a big impact on the way that the audience see the video and their opinions on it.

 We had some feedback on our initial pitch and one of the main constructive criticism was that the storyboard and the ideas were unclear as to what the narrative was because we did not have enough planning as to what we were going to do and how we were going to do it so in the end, as the video was based on college premises we just went with the flow and did what we could by compromising with what we had. From this we had learnt that planning in depth is needed in order to finish on time and create a successful piece of work

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Blogger was used throughout the making of the video indicating what we had done during that day and what was needed to be done in order to be organised and finish on time. We have also written out a timeline of what we had filmed when we filmed it and how long it lasted which showed us the gaps and the time within the gaps that needed to be filled in.  Our research and other video clips were also posted on the blog so that we could refer to them every so often to help us with our final products. The blog was also used by our teacher who informed us on what we needed to do to update our work which was also helpful.

 Photoshop helped us a lot to edit and create both the DVD cover and magazine advert as its tools allowed us to modify the photos that were taken into something more appealing and interesting. Some of the tools that were used were smudge, filter and blur. The photos that were used for the ancillary texts were taken by a professional still camera although we did attempt to take many various photos with the still cameras that we got given which weren’t as good quality and in order to get a very clear and professional looking photo we decided that a professional camera was more ideal.

Final cut was also a great help to us as we gathered all our shots and combined them in an effective way. We cut several shots out and attached them with others so that there is a clearer narrative. We also added an extra sound effect in the beginning of the video when Ben is walking so that it seems more realistic. The volume of the sound is also slowly increased during the video. Transitions such and fade in are used in-between various shots so that they blend in with one another to avoid making the video look less interesting as so did the black and white filter from beginning to end.  

Evaluation - Michael

Our media product uses standard forms and conventions of real media products. As a result, it does look like a real music video. We achieved this by using and following Goodwin's points of music video analysis. I shall look at each of Goodwin's points individually and compare our product to them.

Our video conforms to the characteristics of the indie genre by being filmed in black and white, and looking fairly amateurish.

We were inspired by professional music videos by the Kooks, trying to keep to the formula that has been developed in the genre. Looking at videos from different genres, including spoofs, proved worthwhile. We also looked at previous examples of student music video projects for inspiration.

There is a strong relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. Our video for the song “Walk Away” certainly does contain a lot of walking. We took the story told in the lyrics and visualized it.

There is some relationship between the music and the visuals, some things happen in time to the music, and there is footage of actors portraying the artists playing along.

As in a real music video, there are lots of close ups and shots of the artist and the band. In a real product, the record label would expect this.
There is very little to no voyeurism of the female body in our product. In this sense we have deviated from the standard practice of many music videos. I believe we didn't put any voyeuristic scenes in because there was never an appropriate moment for one in our plan.

Intertextual references are also notably lacking in our video, this was largely due to the fact that we focused more on the story of our video.

We made promotional media materials for our video, including a magazine advert and a digipak cover. After analyzing professionally made digipaks, decided to use the media industry standards set out by doing them in the same style as the video, and adding things appropriate to the medium to sell the idea, such as text, logos and images.

Other groups working on other products viewed our media product and gave constructive feedback. We learned of some areas we could have improved upon, such as the instrument playing, the quality of the shots taken in terms of steady filming, the storytelling etc.

We also learned of areas that our peers thought we did well on, such as the quality of the lip syncing, the good emotive acting, the good use of locations, the strong connection to the lyrics, etc.

We used the internet for most of our research and it proved to be a powerful tool, offering much information on the area. Using this research, we were able to learn the themes and conventions of music videos, so that we might conform, or not conform, to them.

Digital camcorders were used for filming, and proved to be much easier to use than the old tape-based camcorders, as footage could be copied across when it was needed, rather than capturing all of it at once.