note to examiner

I hope that you enjoy looking through my coursework, I feel like I have progressed a lot this year and have learnt a lot of new things about the media music video industry and conventions.

final evaluation question 4

Evaluation question 4 final from willwright50

evaluation question 2 final version

final digipack

final digipak advert

our final music video with improvements

in this video we have changed some of the shots from our original, I think tat these new shots make it run smoother and make the video look more professional.

improved pargraphs

We have used Steve E Carlsson’s theory as he states that a conventional performance music clip would be ‘when a video shows an artist mostly dancing and singing’ for our clip we have made sure that we have our performers singing throughout the video and the majority of it is them performing. Another theory that calsson staes is that “Sometimes the musical elements shape the moving pictures.” The way that we have tried to use this theory is by when on a particular beat we have tried to change the shot pretty much every time. this makes the video make more sense when changing shots as it doesn’t look like it is out of time, an example of were we do this is at 00:03 with our first change of shots.

story board

 

evaluation question 4

Evaluation Question 4 how did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Introduction

Throughput our whole process from planning to making and evaluating we have used media technologies throughout in pretty much every single task. Some of the media products I was using I already knew a fair bit about however through this process I have learnt a lot more about different ways I could incorporate media technologies into my coursework. The media technologies we have incorporated have also been a huge part in helping us organize everyone to get together.

IMac

One of my most used devices was an IMac that the schools already had, I had the choice of a mac or a normal windows computer I chose the mac because I have one at home and therefore would find it easier, as I find I am more adapted to the macs. The IMac was responsible for all of the editing process and the majority of my blogs that I uploaded were through this. A lot of my research was also done using the mac, this was helpful as it is Internet enabled so I was able to search for pretty much everything I needed and as a result if this lots of my research came from the mac. The IMac was used in nearly all stages that I needed, I used it for pre production to do a lot of research, as the research was what japed me decide what we were going to do for our video. We did a lot of analyzing of other videos to look at their styles in camera work, mise en scene and clothing. Then for production we used the iMac for all of our editing of the music video, this was a long process but relied heavily on the iMac for a lot of the editing. Another piece of production that we used the macs for were when creating the ancillary texts I again used the mac for analyzing others to make one of my own that I like and was happy with. Finally I have used the iMac for postproduction, as I have had to do all of my evaluations using tools through the mac.

IPhone

Another apple product that i used was the iPhone 7; this is my personal mobile phone. This came in very handy for when I was trying to organize everyone to get together for production. I used apps like Snapchat and Facebook messenger to create group chats, which were handy to see whether people were free on certain dates; this was a lot easier than having to message everyone individually as everyone could see when others were either free or busy. In Facebook Messenger it also allowed us to set reminders so this meant if everyone had notifications turned on for the application that everyone would get a reminder depending non when it was set for, we had the reminder set the night before filming so everyone would be reminded. Again in production it was useful as we could use ‘maps’ which is the equivalent to a sat nav just on your iPhone, this was very handy when we were trying to find places that wed never been to before or didn’t know the directions our filming destination. Another helpful thing with the iPhone was that I could play music through it so we hooked it up t o a speaker so that our performers knew what to sing.

Blogger

The site where pretty much all my work that can be published has been published, the site I used fir this is blogger. The reason I had chosen blogger over other sites was because I had already had experience from working with blogger, this then meant it was now kinked in with my Google account so I only ever had to log in with Google and didn’t have to log in again and again. It was handy as well as if I had any unfinished work that was going to end up on my blog then I could just save it on the blog and once I signed into any other computer and went on to blogger it would be there. This was a big link from being able to do work from school and home.

IMovie/ Final Cut Pro

When we came to editing we initially started off with using final cut pro, this is editing software that the school supported on its computers. However we found it hard because the schools macs aren’t linked up to the other school computers we couldn’t go back to the work that we had been doing during lessons on the macs. Originally we had decided that we would each separately edit the video however when we realized that we were running out of time and no out f lesson time was available for us to use the macs as other classes were using it we came to the decision that we would all work off of Alex’s MacBook air. As Alex did not have final cut pro we then changed programs to iMovie, it also worked in a very similar way however with a few adjustments. The advantage of working off of Alex’s MacBook meant that we could do it anywhere and anytime we wanted as it is easily portable and he brings it to school everyday. It was handy as well because it meant we could go into quitter places meaning we can listen to the song, which was vital for getting the lip-syncing done. IMovie has been used for our postproduction section of our product, because this is how we turned our raw footage into an actual product.

YouTube

In order for us to make a vide that would suit within our genre we had to do a lot of research especially of other music videos. YouTube was a vital part of our pre production process, form YouTube we found the song that our music video was going to be based around ‘sticks ‘n’ stones’. So once the song had been found it was important to do some research of other videos within our genre. We looked at lots of videos and ones that we used for inspiration of our final video consisted of: Rat Boy Sign On, King Krule Easy Easy and the origami video Jamie T sticks ‘n’ stones. It was a valuable source for us to get a lot of research done. I also analyzed videos using YouTube, it was important to take in al of the features including editing, mise en scene, lighting and sound. Once all of our post production stage had been done we then had to upload it somehow and make sure it was accessible form our blog, we decided that we would upload via YouTube and because all three of us have the same video we had it uploaded to Alex YouTube as it was in his MacBook which we could then get a copy of it each onto our own blogs. This was a vital piece of our post production process as it meant that anyone could now view our recreated sticks ‘n’ stones music video.

ITunes

Once we had chosen our song it was important that we had a legal copy of the song so that we could do the editing of our music video over the sound of the song. The way that I chose to get the song was by purchasing copy of it from the apple iTunes. The reason I chose to purchase it form here is because I was originally working on the IMac it made it simpler just using the official apple application. The advantage of using purchasing it form iTunes as well is that the song will have been bought for all of the devices where I sign into with my account, this meant that my phone also now had a copy of the song, when we came to production this as helpful as it meant I could play the song in the background so our performers knew what to sing which then kept them in time, this would then make the job of post production a lot easier as well because when we came t editing we could also listen to the background noise and hear the part of the song that we were trying to lip sync up.

Photo-shop

One of the tasks we were set was to make ancillary texts; these included making a digipak and an advert for the digipak release date. A digipak is the packaging for a cd to be housed in so we had to create one of these for our band, which would include our song. I decided to make an LP instead of an EP because I thought it made the digipak look better and more interesting. Photoshop was very helpful when coming to the editing of photos for my album cover and the album advert. I was given a link to the template for the digipak from the teacher’s blog then once I got to the page I had to download the right template for what I needed, the template made it a lot easier for me to work Photoshop and will have saved a lot of time. Photoshop also helped me with pre productions I used this software to make some mood boards, which would have an effect on how our final product would turn out. It was also used in the postproduction because once I had my entire digipak and advert were made using Photoshop.

Myfonts.com

After research we had it was time to find our own font that would be used whenever the band is used which in turn would be the logo. The site that we used for finding fonts was called myfonts.com it gave us options of what type of details we would like the font to look like, the other option it gave us was that we could enter our band name so we could actually see what it would look like on the name. after a lot of research we had a page with over 20+ fonts on and we then started to narrow it down we all agreed that the font we would use was ‘grateful black’ I liked how some of the letters were filled in but not all of them, I personally thought it gave it a cool and playful look. My fonts were very helpful pre production because it made it easier for us to find a font and to do more research to fid the right font. It was also helpful in postproduction because when putting our band name on everything it was important that we stuck with the same font so it was easily recognizable.

Nikon D7000- Nikkor 55200 lens

The main bit of our production process from media technologies was the camera, for us we used a Nikon D7000 supported with a Nikkor 55200 lens. The lens enabled us to change our focus in and out with ease and made it look professional as it wasn’t to slow or too fast. I played around with the focus as I liked the effect it gave the video in the end we didn’t really use the out of focus scenes too much but there still were parts where we used them shots. The lens also allowed us to zoom in and out readily and again gave it a professional look because especially when filming it made the zoom a lot smoother by not doing it too quick or slow. It was quite difficult to get use to the lens as when zooming you had to make sure that you would keep up with the focus as well, however once I had figured this out we got some good shots. the filming quality was high quality with a 4k camera quality. This was good because it made the results look very professional as the camera was of such good quality, instead of it looking average, it also made it easier in the postproduction stages as we hardly had to edit any of the actual shots for lighting or anything.

LinkedIn

When coming to the pitch that me and my group created we originally started on PowerPoint but we then moved across to linked in. the reason we did this is because it meant that our work was accessible form the internet is that all three of us could edit it from where ever we wanted as long as we were connected to the internet. When we came to the pitch it was helpful as there was one computer that we had to do the pitch from so logging into linked in was all we had to do and then click on the presentation we wanted. This was helpful during our research part as rom this presentation we received feedback and the feedback had an impact on what the audience thought of the idea whether they liked it or would change some things, fortunately we mainly received positives feedback with few negatives.

Twitter

Our teachers advised for us to create a social media page for our artists/ bands, I decided to make a twitter account for our band. The reason I chose twitter is because most bands have a twitter and it meant that we could encrypt our twitter feed on to the blog, to show the twitter feed. The twitter feed made our band look a lot more realistic as well because a lot of young and modern band  \(like ours) all have shared social media accounts, so it was important for us to stick in with the conventions of the genre.

Microsoft word

Microsoft word has been a very handy piece of software because even though all of my work ends up on to blogger, I have written everything into to word as it has handy tools. Word offers a better spell check and will even help if the sentence doesn’t make sense, another advantage is that it helps with capitals or underlines a word that would need a capital. These are all handy little services that Blogger doesn’t offer and if it odes its no the best so I write everything on to word first and then will copy it over to blogger or another place.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I have used a lot of media technologies to help me throughout the process of making my final product.  I have learnt a lot through the process of making my products and the media technologies have aided me in ways that I couldn’t have done with out for this task. Throughout the whole process from the construction and research to all of production and evaluation stages I have been using media interfaces to help me get what I want to achieve. These media technologies have taught me a lot more about how I can use them and I have found a lot of new things out. So it has been very helpful having all of these media interfaces at my fingertips to make my final product.

evaluation 3

Evaluation Question 3 What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In order for us to be able to have any audience feedback we have done pitch infant of our class who was the majority of our audience. We presented our pitch on power point and it went through all of the plans for our music video, as a result of our feedback we then changed some of our original ideas

the feedback that we received the most on the negative side was "Security issues when filming in certain places" as we were planning to do our filming on a lot of rooftops within the city, with our original plan we were going to do a bit of it on some car park roof tops however we had already had problems with security saying we couldn't film on them roof tops and from the advice from our class and teachers we thought we should look for some different locations. A large majority of our filming was then done down a street in a run-down area of Leicester we thought this would suit our video because we were going for that urban feel and this location portrayed the mise en scene we wanted. The street had both of or artists performing down it and was one of the few locations where both of or performers were together, example of this are found at 00:27, 01:23 and 02:46.

We have also used some abandoned buildings etc to do some shooting there was one place we knew that was safe and had is abandoned so we decided to have a look round, the first building we looked at was in a total mess and would have been unsafe to film in however we went to look in another building and we really liked the back drop of it. From the location we were able to source 3 different locations only two are used in our music video though as we thought this would be ideal. The shots where we have used these only have Alfie involved can be seen at 1:51and 2:40 we liked the contrast of the wall and our artists outfit so this was good for filming.

When we were filming if we did see anyone we could ask to do some filming their we did ask them one of these locations was near a factory this location can be found at 0:34, 1:57 and 2:12 we asked a man who looked like he was either the owner or high up in the chain of this company and he said that it was fine if we didn’t make any mess.

From our first draft video a lot has been changed and mixed around, one of the major changes we have made is that we were going to include some shots with a car in. the car we were using was a 2003 Nissan Micra, however the feedback we received from our teacher stated ‘The car sequences don’t work’. When we asked him why he said that the car would fit in with the music video if we were to use a car he recommended we used a battered up car. After looking at some of our research it was clear why he said this as one of the video that we took inspiration from was rat boys sign on, in his video he used an old battered up car which added to the quirkiness of their video. We realised that it would be hard to find someone with a battered up car and it defiantly wasn’t in our budget, the change of this prop then had a big change on the whole of our video as this was going to be one of the main aspects of the video. We had to come up with different ideas then for what we could use instead.

In our first video we had also included an alcoholic beverage in the video our teacher told us to lose this prop even though this wasn’t a big change for us it helped us to know that we shouldn’t include them in. it has helped as we might have had to reshoot a lot more if we included more alcohol in, or we might have had to blur it out of the whole sing which also would have caused a lot more work than necessary.

We were also told to include more outfit changes as this would make our video look more professional as other conventional music videos include outfit changes throughout their videos. The feedback from our teacher wrote ‘Try including 3 different outfits for the lead singer’ as we have two main singers we made sure that both of our singers had outfit changes. How we decided when to change outfits was by when there in a different location we would give them an outfit change, this would then show correlation between locations and also show the different locations better. Throughout the video Alfie has 7 outfits on pretty much all of them are seen very soon off after the song starts, they can be found at- 0:08, 0:24, 0:26, 0:32, 0:35, 1:37 and 1:50. Fin has a total of these can be seen at 0:05, 0:14, 0:26 and 0:35. We had taken our teachers advice on-board and that’s how our artists ended up with more outfit changes than in previous videos. I think that the outfit changes have improved our video as its one of the main parts of being able to capture to of the genres style sense, especially with clothing being such an important thing to people who would be considered indie it was important to show that we could portray the style.

One of the mistakes we made with our first video was that there were too many static shots, we have changed our camera shots a lot from the beginning video to our final product. The feedback we received on our camera shots stated ‘Avoid static shots (specifically the sat down shot). Always have some movement (either the camera or the background). Consider foreground and background.’ From reading this advice we have then made pretty much our whole music video free hand this made it have more movement throughout the video and because our song was quite upbeat the freehand camera suited the music better than the static shots. It made the video more entertaining instead of a dull motionless video, we have also got the performers doing more in the video s they are dancing and with the two of them they were a lot better performing on camera as it gave them a good energy between the two of them. 

The video we have created had quite a controversial idea with it, the reason for this is that we had two performers for the video but for the actual song it is just one singer. We had thought that we would have fin sing the chorus and Alfie to sing the rest of the song. The reason for this was because we liked the look of both of them and found that when they were together they created an energy that we couldn't get when it was just one of them performing. From the beginning I had always thought that the verses sounded different enough almost to be separate people, we thought that we could play it off like the Cribs as they are both very similar sounding however it is two singers. We were advised by our teacher to 'Make a decision regarding who will be your singer' however when we talked to him and expressed our opinions he said that it could be done but that we would have to be careful and it might be hard to pull it off but he agreed on some of the things we were saying especially with the energy between them. 

In conclusion it was important that we received the feedback that we have because even though we had done a lot of self-analysis we weren't very happy with our first product but our teacher was able to push us into the right direction so that we could create the music video we wanted. As a group we received the feedback together so that we could make the decisions on what we were going to do about it and then discuss with our teachers about further how we would improve our video and what we would have to do in order for it to be completed successfully.

evalution question 2 first draft

Evaluation Question 2 How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

An ancillary text a media product that helps feed in/ support the main media product, in my case my main media product was my music video and my ancillary text would include the my digipack and advert. It is important that my poster and my digipack link with each other and the music video, the reason this is important is because if they are not linked together for a few reason it will not work, first off it will not follow typical media conventions and we have decided that we are following the majority of the basic ones however we have made some of our own. Secondly people would get con used, for example if you had different people on all three then you wouldn't know whether they're part of the same ting or if they are three random things with the same name by coincidence, with confusion this would effect sales of tickets and cd's.

The way I have had the advert link up with the music video and digipack is by using a close up of the artist on the inside cover, this close up of the artist also appears in the actual video so this is a distinctive image of the artist. I have also used the same artist on the front cover as ell however he has he back to the camera and is in front of a metal fence, this image has been used in previous drafts for the music video and I felt like it would make a good front cover. The image I have used for my back panel is one of a dark alley way with graffiti seen, this is the same alley way as the front cover therefore it links to each other instead of being random and our of context. Another way I have tried to link everything together is by using the locations that were used in the video to place on the digipack. Another key part of the media is the text font we have tried to have the font standardized across the all of the media products for our band, this will help people recognize the brand and therefore when they see this font will be reminded of the duo. 

My magazine cover again features my artist, the outfit that he is in is also used in the music video this is so the there is a correlation between the two, this  

evaluation 2 draft 2

 Evaluation Question 2 How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

An ancillary text is a media product that helps feed in/ support the main media product, in my case my main media product was my music video and my ancillary text would include my digipack and advert. It is important that my poster and my digipack link with each other and the music video, the reason this is important is because if they are not linked together for a few reason it will not work, first off it will not follow typical media conventions and we have decided that we are following the majority of the basic ones however we have made some of our own. Secondly people would get con used, for example if you had different people on all three then you wouldn't know whether they're part of the same thing or if they are three random things with the same name by coincidence, with confusion this would affect sales of tickets and cd's.

I have created two ancillary texts; these are a digipak where my cd would be housed in and the other being an advert for my digipak. It was important that all of my products linked together, the typical conventions for them to be linked together is having the artist in/ on all of the ancillary texts or if you were using a graphic design for example the Arctic Monkeys used a graphic design in all of their ancillary products for their album ‘AM’. The reason it is important for bands or artists to have these main images in common is because it allows people to know what the actual product is and then they can recognize what they’re looking at when they see the image/ graphic design used. The image that I have used is a close up photo of Alfie smoking a cigarette, this image features on the front cover of the digipak, is the only photo on my advert and also features in the music video at 9 seconds in from the start. The reason I have used this picture is because I took inspiration from the Arctic Monkeys album ‘whatever people say I am, that’s what I’m not’ I took inspiration from this album because Arctic Monkeys are a Brit pop which we are trying to get our band into the same genre, therefore it made them suitable to take inspiration from. The reason I chose this particular album was because I remember having a shot of Alfie close up smoking and I thought that if they have used it then it would be me following their conventions.

I have made sure also that the record label company, it is important to keep these the same otherwise it could cause some legal issues as more than one record label would think they are responsible for the song. The record label I have gone with is virgin records, I have chosen this label because from research I have seen that they offer deals to up and coming bands and artists so this would help with our band as they are an up and coming band. I have got the record labels logo on both my digipak and the digipak advert so people can see the record label.

With my genre being indie it was important that I kept this throughout, I tried to match the indie style with all of my products. The music that I chose was a song based in the indie genre so therefore it was important that I matched my ancillary texts with the genre. As a result of trying to achieve this I have taken inspiration from arctic monkeys who are the same genre that we are trying to aim for. The outfit choices we have taken inspiration from lots of different bands and artists within the indie genre. We took inspiration from the ban Rat boy and Jaime T mainly. To portray this, I have included quite a few outfit changes in the video and for the ancillary texts we have used images where our artists are still in their costumes, therefore this has a correlation with the video to the ancillary texts.

I have included an orange theme especially on my digipak, the reason for this is because I wanted all of the sides of the digipak to have something in common after playing around with the pallet tool I decided I liked the orange writing on the hoodie Alfie is wearing shown on the inside cover. I used the pallet tool to get this colour which I then decided I would put over the front cover and make it pretty much transparent so that the picture looks like it just has an orange effect to it. This image was then used for my digipak advert because I thought that the picture with an orange tinge to it would be quite a recognisable picture as the orange would stand out to other album covers. The reason I have used this image on my digipak is because it will make it easily recognisable for people wishing to buy the album so it is important that they know the name and the picture if the album. The rest of my digipak also features the colour orange on each the sides, the reason I have used a colour is because it doesn’t have to be massively obvious but you can still see the link. I was thinking to use my band on all of the covers but then thought that tis probably would work and would look unprofessional.

In conclusion I found that it is important to keep the main product and my ancillary texts in common, I have tried to keep most things in common to my main product which would include pictures of the artist and their outfits, however because it is an album containing lots of songs there will be a difference between one video to the album in most situations. I think it Is important to try and keep the main product and ancillary texts, because it then allows the audience to recognise the products from the same band/ artist, following typical conventions you would want all of the products to link together, the main way this is typically done is by having the name of the band/ artist in the same font that everything else is done for.

the 1975 digipack analysis

This digipack has a very monotone look to it, the two colors featured are black and white, the cd its self look a brownie grey colour in the picture however in real life it is black with the writing on it being a shiny black so you can see the name.  The theme stays the same on every bit of the digipack being black and white. Another noticeable them that’s going on is how they’ve stuck to the rule of thirds, they have gone down the middle of the surface in all of them apart from the cd its self where the cd is across the top but is still sticking with the rule of thirds. The reason why they would have chosen these colors and to stick to the rule of thirds is because it makes it look very aesthetically pleasing there fore resulting a more professional looking digipack. Black and white together remind you of a suit or tuxedo, which are usually black with a white shirt, which is often linked to class professionalism and aesthetically, pleasing. This correlation also makes sense as well as it isn’t uncommon for them to perform in suits with a black blazer and jeans with a white shirt on (found in the picture below). The suit could be used as a metaphor like the packaging is what you see however, its what’s on the inside that you’re listening too and actually want to hear the singer who is wearing a suit/ packaging.

On the front and back cover they feature what looks like illuminated text and borders. This can be linked to their live performances as they use illuminated lights like this in their performances. Often using the rectangular borders they have used on the covers these are usually placed above them when performing.  This helps them correlate more of their products together as