Friday, 21 January 2011

Evaluation - Question 4

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I received feedback on my video from various people. Some where from my targets audience for my genre which is indie, also some where members from my class. I collected the feedback after the viewing of my video in the cinema. Some of the audience feedback was as followed;

- Good establishing shots
- vivid close up shots
- Split screen works well with the narrative of the song
- Lip sync in time with the music 
- Conforms to their genre
- Strong editing techniques

However, although we received those good comments we also had a criticism that kept coming up;
'opening shot too long and some shots were too dark'. After looking back on my own video and reviewing it, i also agreed with these points made. Our opening shot was a bit too long, however, that was meant to be our establishing shot and the beginning and end. 


I feel i have learnt how to edit and shot effectively. Due to the feedback i received i understand which parts of my video i would have changed if i could;
- The parts that were too dark
- The establishing shot at the beginning

i would have made sure we film when the weather was similar and lighten the contrast of some shots. I would also cut a few seconds off of the beginning shot. Although, I'm saying this i do still feel my video was a success and enjoyable to watch. I feel i have meet the needs of my target audience and conformed with the genre. 

Evaluation - Question 3

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


The Internet has been a good source when researching. I have used various sites to help gain knowledge on the genre.  I have used Blogger, Google and YouTube. 



Blogger has helped me in recording my journey through creating my music video, advertisement and digipak. Google has enabled me to gather information and visual images to compare other artists, which has influenced me immensely. Also, used YouTube to view other artists video to provide me with some inspiration and ideas. 

I have also used a different of technologies to help create my products. I have used video camera, digital still camera, tripod and memory card. 






To create the clips for my video, i mainly used a video camera to record my shots. The tripod allowed us to steadily shot our shots and make sure our framing was correct and levelled. The memory cards protected the work we filmed on the camera and allowed us to import our work onto the computers. We used digital still cameras to take photos of our potential locations and also on-set photos. 

I also used Final Cut Pro and Photoshop to help me with my practical work further. 




Final Cut Pro allowed me to create my music video. It enabled me to cut shots, put shots in certain places  and allowed my music to be insync with my clips. Photoshop helped me to create my ancillary texts. It provided me with the different layers styles, fonts and textures. Photoshop also provided me with visual benefit like the brightness of my image.

All these elements have helped me to produce my final products.

Evaluation - Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak and advertisement)?

I believe i have made strong links between my music video and my ancillary texts. I have constantly used the same image repeatedly for each ancillary texts, which happens to be a screen shot from my music video. I have chosen a text which i feel links with the genre indie but also with my artist. 

Here is the picture of my digipak below;



Here is the image of my advertisement;



Here is the screenshot image from my video that i used to create my product;




I have used this image to advertise my video but i have put effects on it to change the brightness.

Target Audience




Above is a Moodle which us as a group created to identify our audience. We have used words that describe our typical targeted audience. I feel my digipak, video and advertisement suits our intended audience, people who like indie music. My products have been designed with the audience and genre in my mind. I have decided to ensure my products and video was not over exaggerated as, in indie music artists like to ensure that their music is the main focus rather than themselves as an artist. This is why i decided to keep my advertisement and digipak simple. This is to ensure the focus is on my artists music and confined with the genre. I have decided to chose an image from my video to help link my video to my artist, to make my audience recognise the digipak. I feel i have successful created a digipak that represents my chosen genre and the audience that surrounds it.

Evaluation - Question 1

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

Our video has been influence by a range of videos. Our main inspiration came from the video 'Kickstart' by the artist Example. The editing aspect of this video was really effective and as a group we felt it made the video unique and creative. Therefore, we decided to use the techniques used in the Example video in our own video. We like the visual effects the splitscreen had on the video, so we decided we would use final Cut Pro to create a edit that was similar to the one in 'Kickstart'. 

Here is the video for Kickstart;



Here is some screen shot that we were influenced by in the Example video and also some shots that we did that were similar.

Here is a split screen shot taken from the video Kickstart.


Here is our split screen shot that we produced by using final Cut Pro.

Here are some more examples of how the video Kickstart influenced our video.



Example's Kickstart



Our version of the edit taken from our video.


Another video that influenced our music video was 'Always' by Blink 182. This video influenced us for the same reason as the Kickstart video did. Blink 182 uses similar editing techniques used in the Kickstart video, so it attracted our attention because it was the same editing techniques used in both videos, however, the genre of music was very different. Therefore we figured that if two very different genres of music could create the same edit, it would work with our video and genre. 

Here is the video for Blink 182's song 'Always'.




I feel by researching other video's it has help us with creating the visual aspects of our video. Also, by trying to create specific editing techniques, it has helped me to gain the skills need to use Final Cut Pro. After, the production of our film, it has made me more confident in using Final Cut Pro, framing my camerawork, cutting my shots insync with the music and setting up/ shooting our clips.




The genre for our music video was Indie.
Therefore, i researched our genre to find out what links artists to the genre Indie. I was influenced by the images that we found while creating our moodboard. It helped me to produce the aspects of my digipak. As i researched further i discovered that indie artists like their music to be quite simplistic and plain, therefore, the audience can focus on their music rather than them as artists. Therefore, i have decided to keep my digipak simple. I have used an image for my digipak which is a clip featured in my music video. This is to connect my digipak with my artist and also to keep my work simple.


Here is our moodboard that has helped me to create my digipak and advert.


Here is my digipak and advertisement below


Advertisement




                                                                             Digipak
                

Production - Final Digipak

Final Digipak


Here is an image of my completed digipak


                                  Back panel                                                         Front Panel

Production -Final Advertisement

Final Advertisement

Here is the advertisement for my video





Planning - Photo that i plan to use in my digipak and advertisement

I plan to use this image in my digipak and advertisement because in is an image from my video. i wanted to chose an image from my video to help my audience connect my music video to my digipak. I plan to use this image on all four panels of my digipak, to keep it simple. I feel it is a nice simple background image, however, i am going to put a font colour over it to bring out the beauty of my image. I'm  not planning to use an image of my artist on my digipak because indie artists like to focus on there music rather than themselves. 






Planning - Do's and Dont's



Do's
 - Use a clear font
- Use fonts that represent the genre
- Use appropriate industry logo's and conventions

Dont's
- Stretch images
- Place text over the artist's face
- Use unnecessary effect

Planning - Short-List of fonts, colours, layout and design ideas

Fonts
Before chosing my font i went through a range of fonts to decided which was most suited for my genre. My genre was indie so from previous research review other indie digipak and advertisements i notice that there was a pattern of font styles. The pattern that i saw was that all the indie artists chose a font that was simple but also has a egde of style to it. After going through all the fonts i was looking at two particuar styles; Apple Chancery and Algerian. These two fonts suited my genre and had that essents of style that i was looking for to suit my artist. After much thought i decided to chose Apple Chancery as the main font i was going to use. I liked this font because it was simple and had an edgy style.


Layout
After looking at many different digipaks, i decided that i would create a four panel digipak. My reason for this was because my genre is indie and the style that indie artistschose is to keep it simply and focus moreon the music rather than themselves as an artist. I decided to have an image on my digipak that was from my video. I chose to do this because from the reasearch i gathered on artist's digipaks, most of them chose to have an image from their video as their digipak cover.

Colours
The colours that i am planning to use are earthy colours such as blue, grey, white, green and orange. I decided to use colours that were already exsisting in my video. I feel that i should use natural colours and colours that are light. 


Design Ideas
I like this image as it is simple and plain,however, i think the colours i am going to use for the fonts will contrasts nicely with the background image. Also, this is an image from my video so it will link my artist to my digipak.




Thursday, 20 January 2011

Evaluation

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

As our video didn't have a proper narrative therefor we went for something that caught the audiences eye by the use of camera shots. The video kickstart by Example influenced our group because of the use of editing, split screen, camera shots etc, this is why we used it in our video. Also the genre of both videos are a mixture of indie and pop.


'kickstart' by example


 This shot here from our video is our main chorus. So we split the screen in two. 

       

Here you can see a screenshot of a split screen from the kickstart video and the way it shows visual links between our video. 


DIGIPAK.jpg

My digipak was influenced by Au Revoir Simone's digipak cover.  
I like the use of simple flat colours used on this digipak as it doesn't have too much going on and is easy to notice. The background colour is just plain blue however effect is very effective as it looks like some source of light being reflected. You can only see two simple text on the title and the track list on the back. The tree on the front is the biggest clue on what genre the music is going to be, you can tell instantly it is indie.


This is a picture of the inside left panel of my digipak. 
I decided to go for a graphic style rather than using pictures from our video because i wanted to do something different as most digipaks uses pictures from music videos.




My advertisement was influenced by Au revoir Simone's poster as well as jack johnson's in between poster. I really like the use of designs and effects used on these posters as it catches the audiences eye with out having to show too many colours and pictures. 

advertisement.jpg            

This is my advertisement and as one can see that i have used the main convention of an advertisement in which in this case is showing a picture of the front cover of my digipak so it isn't hard for the audience to realise which music video this advertisement is referring to. 
i have used graphical patterns of leaves and spirals relating to advertisements i have seen that relate to the genre indie. I tried to keep everything straight forward and simple. I also used only two different fonts and colours. 

2) How effective is the combination of your main product (video0)and ancillary textss (digipak and advertisement)?   

As my digipak doesn't have pictures it would be quite hard for my audience to recognise the music video however instead of creating visual links with pictures i instead did it with graphic designs to show something different and because the genre of my music video is indie pop, most digipaks and advertisements do not show the artist on the front and even if they do they are shown looking away from the camera as they don't really like making eye contact with the audience. 


This is a picture of my design from my digipak


 This is a shot from the chorus of my music video 


 

These are the designs that influenced me into using leaves and filter effects on my digipak and advertisement. 


                                                   
  This is a picture of my design from my advertisement. 
I used leaves and spiral effect vines to create a visual link between my video and my ancillary products. 

I think my ancillary products are quite successful as it does attract the audience and does give away the main concept of what genre the music video is from however, it is not easy to tell which music video the products are linked to. 

3) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research and planning and evaluation stages? 
Sony Camera.jpg samsung-st90.jpg

Video cameras used for filming and digital camera used for taking pictures
We used a light that connected on top of the video camera because there was a scene in our video where the male artist was singing and the background was dark. we used a range of shots like close ups, medium shots tracking, panning etc. we took picture before filming to help us decide what we would shoot and where are location would be. 




P1000083.JPG.jpg  P1000084.JPG.jpg

P1000085.JPG.jpg  P1030818.JPG.jpg

here are some pictures we took while filming the first three are of when we were doing the panning shot of the sky. 




This is a low angle shot from our music video as one can see the artist is looking up at the camera.
This shot is effective as it is shown from a different perspective rather than having same angles all the time 

 

these shots are from the beginning and end of my music video and and it pans around showing the view of a sky
By adding a dark effect on the last shot of the sky tells the audience the video has finished

  blogger_logo.jpg
Blogger used for researching other music video that links to our genre and many more, planning designs and ideas for music video and ancillary products and evaluating our final outcome. 
youtube-logo(2).jpeg 
youtube used for searching music videos to compare to and embedding and also to show links.

   internet-explorer-logo.jpg 
internet explorer and firefox used for searching pictures and digipaks and advertisements.
  FinalCutProLogoBIG.png
                                                                       

final cut pro used for editing the music video. fast/slow edits adding effects to particular shots. 


split screen effect into nine squares this is because we wanted to do something different to other videos. 


filter used on top of one shot to show other shot through it as it tells the audience what is going to happen next. 


this shot is speeded up so it doesn't seem the videos  going on forever.  

                                                                  


photoshop used to create the digipak and advertisement
many different layers used to show designs.





rimas+digipak+final.jpg

                   advertisement.jpg

final outcome of ancillary products 



animatic storyboard 
a draft of our video showing the basic shots and effects, pictures going to be used  before the finished outcome 




editing screen on final cut pro



Here is a screen shot of how i was changing the effects on the titles and backgrounds on photoshop


here is a screen shot of when i was a adding a filter effect to my background 


 

researching on blogger
analysing digipaks that relate to our genre  


planning on blogger 
planning my digipak and advertisement showing what fonts and background colours are going to be used. 



evaluating on blogger 



4) What have you leaned from your audience feedback?

       http://vimeo.com/17676727

LINK TO OUR VIDEO 



while viewing my video at cinema the audience were very amused as they thought it was something different to what others have created.
they were very fond of the use of filters and effects.

while analysing in class some of the feedback we got were:
good range of shots
lighting was quite dark
speeding some parts up tied the video in together
video should be extended

The improvements that i thought should be made is making the film a little longer and maybe if we had a narrative to it would of made it more interesting. 

i enjoyed filming mostly as it made me realise how difficult it is to get the camera in the right position and how to get the specific shots. Editing was really interesting as it was very confusing as to how filming for many hours all came down to a two minute video and how it all should be layed out.
creating the ancillary products was really fun as it taught me how to put different layers and filters to make it effective.


 I have learnt throughout the preparation of making a music video and ancillary products that a successful music video will make clear links between it and its ancillary products, digipak and advertisement.

Overall i have enjoyed this whole project and hope to carry on creating more.