Thursday, 18 April 2013

Evaluation




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

The codes and conventions for indie rock tends to be portrayed through the style of clothing. This heartbreak song was hard to portray the genre, but we tried our best through the clothing. We used several different locations and this includes a park, restaurant, the couples house, the music studio and various roads where there are plenty of close ups of the artist. In other songs similar to ours that I had done my research on, I noticed that a lot of the clothing tends to be either simple, or very bright and colourful. The point in the music video is to get across to the audience the sorrow and pain that the artist is suffering, and I think we achieved this by showing close-ups of the artist, and showing the emotion. I decided to use a tripod during our filming and this is because it is a serious video. If the video was jerky and moving about, it will look less professional. Another thing I decided to use whilst editing was to use a mixture of slow motion and black and white shots within the video. I think that this adds more emotion to the music video, and it makes it more emotional and works well with what we shot.

Just like a typical heartbreak indie song, we had our story line and it was clear from the start. The storyline is about a happy couple together and shows all the happy moments between them. Then ‘Chanele’ sees that her boyfriend has been texting other girls, and this is where it all goes wrong, and at this point in the song, it goes very dramatic, and shows everything going wrong. I then made all the shots slower, more close-ups of the face to show her upset, depressed and lonely.

We had used inter-textual references of the original song. The parts we used were the original song and a similar theme. The storyline itself was different, as were the locations, but it ran the same theme of a couple being happy then sad, then reminiscing and last ­pain.



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

I think that the ancillary texts work well with our music video. I decided that when making the posters and digipak, I would keep the thematics, branding designs and representations consistant across all products.

When drawing up my idea, I had an outline of what I wanted, but producing the ideas­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­-­­­­­­­­ onto paper, which is harder than people think. I was constantly trying to change it to make it look a bit better. I decided to keep the same fonts throughout aswell. The font I decided to use, took a while, because I wanted to get the right font. The reason for choosing that font is because it is cracked a little, and that represents heartbreak, which ties into the theme of our song.

The digipak was a hard process and I learned a lot more tools on Photoshop. I believe this has developed my abilities, and helped me make a better digipak.

On the digipak, and poster, we both have a picture of the artist Chanele on it, this is because we need to get the artist out there and get her style out there. We need to make sure the artist is recognisable and has her own fashion sense. It is important to get the artists image out and get her into the music industry well, because if the whole music campaign flops, it will be bad for the artist.

I decided to keep the background the same through the different forms of media and have ‘torn’ slightly faded in the background. This means the audience will be draw to it when studying the media, and it will be fixed into their head. The main reason for making a digipak and poster is so that people will remember it next time they go out, and will want to buy it and I believe that my one will do that to people.



Audience Feedback



This is the feedback that I have got from my friends and I am happy with the comments back. It is obvious that they really enjoyed it, and this makes me happy because it shows the effort that I have put in has paid off.  The general census is that they thought that my music video stuck to the codes and conventions and wasn’t cheesy.  I have learned that if you put your mind to something, you can achieve it. I thought it was going to be harder, and I was a bit distant at first, but when I put the effort in, I can achieve what I want, and I think this shows in the music video. I believe that my friends and family really enjoyed it and I think what we have done worked really well. The whole process from planning to production was very valuable, every little bit of preparation helped.



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

The forms of technology is used to create my music video was a flip camera and final cut pro on the IMacs. The technology used was very easy and simple to use. I remembered when I made my title sequence from last year and used my knowledge from then, and have now improved my skills. I think I have achieved a lot with my editing skills.

Research and Planning

The research and planning of my final piece was all completed on blogger.com. It is an online diary more than anything, which lets you keep an online log of what you have done. It is an online blog that if you keep tidy, it is easy to find your way around the website and find previous pieces of work, which is beneficial for revising. It is also useful for saving links, which you have been using for your research.

I had also used websites such as YouTube and Wikipedia to further my knowledge into theorists, genres, clothes, and codes and conventions to help progress my work.


 Production

The software and technology I used for the production side of my music video were:
·      Final cut pro
·      Mpeg stream clip
·      Photoshop
·      Flip camera

The technology I used, I have had previous use of, so it enabled me to further my knowledge in the different areas. The process I had to do from beginning to end was as follows:
1.    Mind map of ideas
2.    Storyboards
3.    Photo animatic (this helped us gage our timings of each shot)
4.    Music video

Evaluation

After the music video was created, I had uploaded my final copy to YouTube and handed it into my teacher. I then decided to get feedback through other forms of media, and use social networking websites. The websites I decided to use was Facebook and twitter, aswell as asking for comments on the YouTube page.



As a whole, I think my knowledge of editing and production has progressed this year, and I am proud of my final product. The feedback I have received was nothing less than fantastic and it is a great sense of achievement to be able to share it with everyone, and then to get such great feedback was a bonus.

Wednesday, 10 April 2013

Digipak




This is my complete and final digipak.

Poster

Finished Copy of Music Video






This is the music video for our group. It took its time and plenty of re-shooting but this is the finished product so far. There are minor adjustments that I will have to do, but I think that what we have done is good.

I have asked for feedback from family and friends, and the general concensus is that it is very good. The people I have spoke to, have said they liked it, and they like the mixture between colour and black and white shots. They also like the slow motion shots, as they make it look more dramatic.

Also in the verbal feedback, people seem to like the end, where it goes slow motion, and fades to black and white.

Filming Issues

Our filming went really well yesterday and we have noticed that there is an issue with lighting in a couple of the shots. We did not necessarily think of this while shooting at the time but we have learnt from our mistakes and will put them correct soon.

We have almost completed the shooting process, but this has been a set back for us. In the studio where we filmed, it looked like it will be alright for filming, but once uploading it, the footage is unusable.

Friday, 25 January 2013

Photo Animatic




This is our photo animatic for our music video. We think that this is exactly what we want our video to look like, but we will change certain parts if we feel necessary.

Screenshots







These are the screenshots of our first shooting at Danson Park. We think that filming went extremely well and went smoothly with no issues. We feel that we need to take more close up shots to expose the artist more because their isn't enough and trying to sell the artist will be hard. These are the scenes we will be using in our music video and we think it sets the tone perfectly.