Evaluation Post #4

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

All throughout our coursework and the completion of different tasks, different media technologies were essential throughout. In the beginning we used sites such as youtube and blogger to plan our early ideas, being able to watch videos and write about them etc. For example in my blogging earlier with trying to search for a song to use in our music video none of that would of been able to of been completed if it wasn't for sites like YouTube. And of course withut the aid of blogger it self none of the progress we were making would of been able to of been documented to help and inspire othergroup's work and use their blogs to inspire and improve our own.

The big help definitely did come in the construction stages of your work, shown here in James and I editing our music video. Without the aid of tools like Final Cut being able to edit down our video, it would be very difficult to piece together seperate pieces of footage and be extremely time consuming on the day of filming, and thusly by using programmes like Final Cut it made the process significantly easier. James and I did find problems getting to grips with anew piece of software in ohur lives like Final Cut and especially on a different type of computer like a Mac, but with disagreements with the machines and programmes on them we learnt from these disagreement and soon we became adept at them, as withut them our coursework would of not been produced.

Also here is the programme named Photoshop, with which James and I had experienced before and found it a great help in creating our digipack and magazine advert, and creating them to an industry standard comparable to many adverts a reader would find in a popular music magazine like, the NME, exactly the type of magazine that would get the audience James and I were targetting. It was also very handy in viewing products like our digipak as seen on the right here in the finished form without having to actually produce them physically.

The music software reaper also came in handy with James and I as we came to a point in production where we decided the original 6 minute version of 'Love Spreads' would be too long and had to edit it down to a reasonable size.

Evaluation Post #3

3 What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To measure our audiences perception on our products, James posted the artwork and final cut of our music video on a reasonable sized indie guitar forum, then took the responses i got and helped edit my work accordingly. We picked the places for audience feedback based on if it has diversified members but also a large amount of indie memebrs also to coinicide with our audience research. One of the places we used was the before mentioned guitar forum, all with members with a common liking being Guitars, and the heavy reliance and prominance of guitars in our song is somthing they all identified with, making this place a very good place for things to advance in terms of our audience feedback.

This comment on the left commented on the dull lighting and environment on the room, due to lack of time we couldnt refilm it was dificult to refilm and we could make beter time with properly concentrating on editing , but using contrast adjustments in final cut pro James and I managed to alter the contrast and make the footage seem more striking for the viewer.

Another comment received here was mentioning the acting and that it was of good quality which was pleasing to here. It also mentioned about editing a few of the shots and making them become more in synch with the beat of the music a convention James and I were adement about, soon we had changed a few shots and the music video seemed to run a lot smoother along with the video.

Also to coincide with our target audience of young fans of rock and indie music, James and I posted our work on Facebook and collected comments from our friends and peers on our work

The comments show how well the media package does work amongst people of our target audience, this is pleasing to see as it does openly display how well maybe our product could survive in the real media world.

Evaluation Post #2

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

I believe James and I successfully managed to combine our main product with our ancillary tasks quite well, through a series of techniques like creating a house brand with our products, we did this in several ways, such as the running theme of black and white throughout our three products and making sure a the same instruments and similar poses were used through out. If my audience would see either the poster or the music video or magazine advert they would instantly recognize it because of the similarities in design they share from recognizing the black and white video stills from the music video, on the album cover and magazine.

James and I also made it our priority to include the faces of the four members of our band on our cover for our digipak and magazine advert, and also the music video where we showed the 4 members faces extensivly, to help our audience identify with our band as a brand and a product. For example here in our two ancillary tasks:, there is the common re-occurence of certain member's faces to really establish that house style but to also just really help promote the band in our project, like a real world media product would.

Evaluation Post #1

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

Our music video uses a variety of music video conventions thoughout, which is what we were aiming to do with our task, but also challenges any of them along with the production of it aswell.

Firstly we abided to a lot of the usual conventons of media products by using a lot of the ordinary, basic shots that can be found in many famous music videos, this makes the music video easily viewable for our audience and easily accessible. The shots we aimed (and succeeded) in using the singers face shot, this sems to hold some importance as it lets the audience quickly develop an unspoken connection with the singer in the video, as if he (the singer) is singing to the audience himself, it also identifies them to the audience letting them know who it is, and makign it easily recognisable for later on, helping promote the bands music in a positive way, a very usual convention of music videos. These shots are typical close ups, focusing on the face, especially the eyes and mouth of the singer James and I used this shot extensivly throughout our video again helping the audience to establsh that particiular connection with the lead singer, and makign sure that the lead singer could be seen as definatley recognizable and identifiable.

Our video includes a lot of guitar solo's, so James and I thought it should be highly important that our audience knew our guitarist and could see what he was doing, the audience culd thusly not only see and hear the lyrical content develop but also the musical conent and the main drive of the song, really letting our audience become absorbed in the music video, not particularly challenging any convention in real media products like mine but still definitely helpful in presenting the music video. Again we included shots of the guitarist playing regularly in order to really let the audience become absorbed in the music of the song. A lot of the time when shooting the footage of the guitarist we used medium close ups of the finger work and mid-body movement of the guitarist to really help let the audience become absorbed in the musical beat of the guitar playing. We also used a few quite high angle shots of the guitar player to establish his dominance in the song, again expoiting this guitar driven nature of the song. Many similar real music videos also have this convention evident in them as to realy add emhpasis the guitar which is very important in rock music, like the style of our song, not an unusual convention in music videos, not one we have challenged but one we have included to great effect.

This above mentioned convention of media is one that also relates to that of the drummer and the bassist as the audience need that connection to be created between them both, for example in this screen grab when the position and nature of the drummer is shown to the audience the relationship between musician and audience can begin, which is a very important convention when creating a music video in the modern age.

I feel as though James and I have succesfully utilised typical conventions in media through our shot choices, using classic and recognizable methods of shooting our band for example rotating between guitar and vocals. These famous music videos that have popularised bands and the same effect may occur with ours if it were a real media product. We also tried to develop and expand on many conventions of music video's, one group of shots mat and I thought would be important to include would be "profile" shots of each member, outside the performance environment, we also tried to show them having fun and enjoying themselves, to keep with the feeling of the laid back nature of the song, to really enhance that quite unconventional feel of showing a band in a music video and trying to promote them even without them playing their instruments, maybe even enhancing a sense of iconography in the video. Editing to the beat was also a big thing in abiding to certain usual conventions of media products, but not one we went out to obey rather one that just naturally occured, to really drive that rhythm and help draw the audience in to our video.

Final Magazine Advert

This is our final magazine advert. The use here of the album cover is fantastic is displaying the band's album and the prominence of it, especially in how it spreads over the face of an A4 sheet. To link back to my mood board, the theme of religion in 'Love Spreads' is played upon here in the release date of easter sunday to coincide with the title of the 'Second Coming' a good way of getting across to our target audience the new album in quite an inconic and quirky way. The creation of a house theme is definitely evident here as this links in with the digipak and the music video creatign an all round well-produced promotion, which is what James and I are supposed to have aimed to create.

Finished Digipak

Here is mine and James' finished digipak cover with comparison to our original video i can see that this is very effective in creating a link between the video and this digipak, its safe to say the old rock and roll style of the song with the vinyl record on the back of the digipak really helps broadcast that overall style our audience which is what we wanted to achieve.

Construction and Completion of the Digipak

I was mainly absent on workign on the digipak, but James still consulted me on many of the design processes of the digipak.

Firstly James created the idea of using a vinyl record being included on the front cover, soon we reaised that this may look better on the back and decided to use it as the back cover.

James and I then placed an all black background for the front cover and begun work on that.

Here you can see where James and I have placed four screen grabs from our music video, to really again get across our band and market them which is the overall point of creating a digipak.

Next James added font to the album cover, which really had a torn away feel to it which was important when creating a digipak that would mirror the music in our music video. It also really helped bring out the contrast of balck and white in the screen shots and also in the video. The bold type face as well would really help draw in an audience as it boldly states the name of the band and the album title, ideal for use in an magazine advert also.

The comparison noted here is in how we added a sticker to the front cover to really add that feel of a realistic media product, which i beleive was done exceedingly well expecially in the contrastign colours of the black and white with the gold sticker.

Digipak

When designing our digipak we decided we wanted a clean cut cover, much like our video where everything had a fine line drawn between it by the use of black and white and a basic 'band performance' style of video.

With our video and other digipaks available on the market we noticed a correlation. Many bands have music videos with the main band performing and to coincide with this they create digipaks that's main focus is of the band as well. So to James and I this seemed like an obvious way to take our music video and digipak.

Various styles James and I are influenced by begun showing up in discusions me and him had about the design of the digipak. For example the Let it Be front cover for the final Beatles' album is something that is extremely mainstream and from research may be very appealing to our audience, as it offers a clear view of who the band are, the title of the album too, all necessary conventions when creating a product like this. Also the way in which all four members have been put on display in four seperate boxes, in a clear cut way, helps easily display the band and also provides a link between other products linked with this digipak. This, without a doubt, will be a very heavy influence on our final digipak.

Target Audience

James and I referenced this subject of target audience slightly when discussing what is to be created when it needs to appeal to our target audience, but more than ever now James and I need it for deciding on how to design our ancillary tasks.

With different media forms being created one important thing about the 21st century, and the effects of modern technology cause a large polarisation and diversifying of cultures and fashions on young people. It seems to me that in order for our product to become appealing in the media world, we must create it to be appealing to our target audience.

From the above placed picture I have noticed that there are a wide variety of social groups out there, but to first identify my product with what group suits it, I've had to refer to my mood board and previous posts about the song itself, with 'Love Spreads' it seems to be that it is a song based around a Southern North American guitar sound, with a very deep and rocky sound, and also as the The Stone Roses as a band are referred to as almost sacred amongst 'indie' social groups, being given the best album ever by NME, a well-known indie music magazine, it would make sense to aim our product at this certain group.

Appealing to an Indie audience mainly means a very mainstream approach to designing our ancillary tasks, for example an inclusion of the band is a definite inclusion to have as it keeps a consitency between our music video and our ancillary tasks. Figuring out what kind of target audience James and I will create our products for is a very important asset in product design.

Concluding the Editing

Soon James and I had edited a considerable length of the video and it was nearing completion, after constantly re-watching the footage and looking out for any pieces of footage seemed too out of time to be used in the final video. We asked our teacher and class mates to review the footage and tell us what seemed to be inappropriate about the footage, for example things that they didn't feel suited the song or shots that seemed to be put of time with the footage. After James and I went through the video, carefully repairing these faults we had come to an almost completed video. We came to the end of the video and decided to add a fade out to really contrast the minimalistic final notes of the guitar with the culminative entire-band music. Our final video after the process of editing is as follows http://vimeo.com/10410725

Wire Framing

When James and I came to editing a lot of our video we noticed that a few of our shots had quite irregular shots where the framing was a bit unorthodox and that looked estranged next to the other shots in the video where the framing was more appropriate. James and I soon found out about the technique of wire framing, this helped us cut our shots down to a certain size by resizing them, which helped in aiding us to cut many of our shots down to a suitable size, this helped a lot in creating a sense of continuity in our video, all together letting the video flow easier and making it more accessible for our audience.

Editing to Music

As the editing sessions began to grow James and I began to see a video taking shape, constantly re-watching footage to make sure what we had was appropriate. As the editing sessions began to grow James and I began to see a video taking shape, constantly re-watching footage to make sure what we had was appropriate. The main thing we had to keep revising and watching back and forth was what shots were in time and what weren't, the ability to do this is very important when creating a music video, as what a lot of music is based around is the beat of the song, and with a well timed editing in the video the both should compliment each other. Of course among the group they was a lot discourse as we found it hard to decide what bits were in time and what weren't, of course a lot of the time during this, it was easier to just let either one us show what was in time and meet an agreement.

Editing

After James and I revised our footage we begun the editing. We firstly had our footage separated off into separate pieces of film labelled for what each piece of footage contained, they were labelled as follows:

-1/2 Lead Singer, Entire Band, Guitar and Bass

-All Guitar

-Close-up Singer

-The Drums

-Guitar and Bass

-Singer

-The Drums and Singer

This was mainly to help keep the editing a lot more organized process and more efficient also. James and I then looked at our original animatic and began editing down shots that suited what we had in our original animatic. We began editing down further into the video and with referral to our mood board James and I attempted to begin desaturating our footage, or in other words began changing the footage to black and white. For example in the music video for 'Suck My Kiss' by RHCP

the way black and white, especially in the before mentioned video, can add a sense of mysteriousness to a piece of cinematography, this i believe really begins showing the contrasting ideas of a black Jesus Christ and a White Jesus Christ expressed in lyrics for Love Spreads, and also the general darkness and light religion can shed on the world.

Reviewing the Footage

James and I gathered first thing on the morning back after the weekend of filming and watched and discussed the footage we had filmed. With the original raw footage James and I noticed there was a definite difference between what we thought we had got and what we actually had got.

We noticed that a lot of the shots were at a very high angle or a very low angle which is not a usual convention of music videos, and a lot of the shots were either taken at too much of an unusual point of view. The mise-en-scene in the footage is good thanks to the actors bringing the appropriate instruments and wearing the right clothes, however the main problem we found with a lot of our shots is in considering how small the space we were in was a help but also a hindrance as a lot of the lights we used got in the way of our shots and made a lot of our shots appear quite amateurish which is not we want when we are trying to create a product that could exist in the real Media world.

Soon James and I had watched all our footage and agreed that with the aid of editing and utilizing the appropriate footage James and I could create an appropriate music video our audience.

The Day of Filming

Mine and James' first day of filming was productive. Before we set off we agreed to meet one another and go over our checklists to see what we had and what we didn't, when we had gathered everything we agreed on we left for our location. When we arrived at the location it was quite a mess with different things that made it hard to see if this was a suitable location for our music video, but James and I soon cleared it and it was clear of all excess objects we move in the amplifiers drums and soon when the actors arrive we moved in their own amplifiers and instruments. We also realized when we arrived that the window in the location was letting too much light and so James and I decided to cover the window with bits of paper to help enhance the use of artificial light.

All of our actors seemed to be arriving on time, until our guitarist Mike was delayed by family issues, that was difficult as we were getting quite emotional about it but of course when he arrived we didn't want to seem insensitive to his situation, however when he arrived he seemed not too effected by it and gave a very good performance, working with a situation like this is difficult as we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

From left to right is our Drummer, Vocalist and Guitarist Mike on arrival.

When the mise-en-scene was organized, as shown in this picture,

the actors soon took places and filming looked it was able to go ahead. We decided to first to play the song through once or twice to allow each actor to get their own feeling of the song they were here to perform along to. When they seemed happy where they were James and I began filming them performing the song through as a band, realizing that when it came to the time for editing any shots we want will be kept and others we don't want will be cut.

James and I watched back over the footage, pleased with what we had, we began filming each individual member. We were soon informed that the drummer and lead singer had to leave ahead of schedule, we overcame this by choosing to film them first and after this came the solo Bass Guitar and Drums. Each member when filming were extremely co-operative, never going off task or losing focus which was a great help both James and I seem to be grateful for.

Ways in which James and I maybe could have managed our time better include that we should have checked what plans our actors had that day to make sure no interruptions like the ones we experienced would occur.

Mood Board

My mood bored helps display different emotions and vibes that I get from listening to my chosen song. From portraying different settings and colors it makes easier for me to then take these and use them in my music video, and get what i see into a music video and let it relate to what the audience want to see.

I can definitely use all the different pictures as influences for what will be included in the video in terms of mise-en-scene (including clothes, instruments, colors).

A definite feeling I get from listening to 'Love Spreads' is created by the guitar, a very deep, distorted tone and the scales the music is written all really connote a modern but past and distorted period of time, which maybe best mirrored in my video as using unusual camera angles and maybe making the film black and white, much like some of the photos in my mood board.

The question of religion in this song is very prominent in the lyrics, it would be difficult to express this in a performance video, but a theme could be decided upon. The suggested time of Christ's crucifixion is a distorted period in time as suggested by this song, where it says that Jesus Christ is supposedly a black female, by using a black and white lense the contrast between black and white could be expressed also black and white shows a slight distortion which could mirror the distortion of this certain in time.