Evaluation

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

My media product uses other media products such as the style of the album cover being a gate fold; we have also used a colour theme throughout the the magazine article and the Digi pack; keeping it all linked together. Within our video we have used comedy to create what we believe to be a successful video due to the fact that the song itself is quite up beat and cheerful and within real music videos you do find a comic background to the videos such as bruno Mars's 'Lazy song, also other music videos such as katy Perry's 'last friday night' giving us more confidence in being able to create the comic video we wanted without challenging the media conventions. However we have also tried to challenge the media conventions of music videos by being a bit different including the 'clothes' swap; this challenges the conventions as you wouldn't normally see something like this within videos as it maybe wouldn't work unless the lyrics fitted it in this sense; therefore creating the perfect opportunity for us to use the challenge to our advantage. we also challenged the media conventions in ways such as not showing the bands faces within the pictures uses; we decided a more mysterious approach; this challenges the music video conventions as most bands use themselves to promote their album in ways such as being clearly seen on the front cover, on a magazine article or associated somewhere within their video, however within our video we do not have any shots of the artists or vocalist to keep up the mystery in a sense but also we thought it would take away the affect of the comedy and effect the continuity throughout our video and our story line may be disrupted. we believe overall we have developed the conventions and forms of music videos due to the fact we have shown you can be different but still have a successful music video, we have shown that the artists not always needed to promote or be on everything or in fact anything of the video magazine article or Digi pack that clearly shows the artist or band.










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

i think that our combination of our main product and ancillary texts compliment each other due to the fact that the video is seen to be upbeat, comic and enjoyable, but still mysterious as you are unaware of what the artists look like - our magazine article follows on about the fact that you want to know what the artists look like so we have used a silhouetted image giving a slight view but not uncovering too much. we have also created a fairly blank magazine article in comparison to some articles we've seen due to the fact it has the silhouette our robot logo for the album cover and then the music brandings including music awards , how many stars rated , the Facebook page and also the shops in which the album can be brought in and finally we have included the tour dates; keeping the audience interested again fitting neatly into the unveiling of the album cover itself; each connecting to one another building up starting from one music video and then to the promotion of the that using the magazine add and finally the entire album. i also think that they suit so well as they all have a robotic visual or sound throughout for example the song sister siam is a very robotic song in some parts linking with the chosen design of a toy robot to be the logo in a sense.

3) What have you learnt from your audience feedback.

From the audience feedback that we were given we have learnt that there weere good points but also bad points about our music video these included the fact that the video is promising but needs to have more effects in order to fit and complete our goal in comical performance and the clothes swap to be successful, because they thought the comical performance fitted well with the video we just needed to perfect it. We were also told that there is not a direct link between the lyrics and the visuals apart from the characters going separate ways which are one of the lyrics within the song.The feedback also said that the upbeat tempo and genre of the song had a good relationship with the visuals. Overall our comments were seen to be good and but we also had constructive critisism which we appreciate. we have also learnt that if we had filmed more footage we would have a larger amount of shots to use within our video and then we would have a more varied variety of camera angles and shots to improve the video but also to make the video more appealing and interesting for the viewers.

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

Within creating our music video we have used a range of new media technologies these include technologies such as the HD video camera used for filming the video; a stills camera for putting our ideas on to the blog which is also a technology we used and it was used to document our progress and ideas. apple mac computers which contained our editing technologies which were final cut express - used for editing our video to make it run smooth and to create the effects that we wanted; and finally we used photoshop to design our magazine article and our Digi pack. all of the equipment we used helped to create our video and the ancillary products because we were able to create effects using photoshop and final cut express to add effects that we wanted and we especially used final cut express to bring out whole video together which smooth shots. we used the HD cameras so we could get a good quality of film enabling us to have un-pixelated shots. photoshop was useful so we could add what we wanted to in order to create the atmosphere of the band but also having the ability to create images and the ancillary products so that they suited the band in the way we wanted it to. The stills camera was very useful as it allowed us to capture our images we wanted to use in our ancillary tasks but also helped document our progress for when we had written ideas on paper and had no other way to get them onto our blog which we found a great help with keep track of all of our work. The Apple Mac computers were helpful as they had everything we needed in one place, keeping everything safe and easily accessible during lessons.
 Overall all of the equipment we used to create our music video helped immensely as we were able to capture moments that we wanted to; edit them in the ways we had chosen and also have an accompanying digi pack and magazine article that fitted.

Final Cut express

 

Blogger

Photoshop 

Magazine Ad Final

idea for digi pak

goodwin analysis of our final video

1. Our music video demonstrates the genre characteristics by having the comical style of a typical techno genre.

2. Although there are few lyrics within the song the lyrics do relate to the visuals in the way that the characters do go 'their own way'.

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals because of the way the characters move and interact with eachother.

4. Our video challenges normal conventions to other music videos as we dont an artist so we cant have recurring motive.

Final Cut Feedback

• Good Editing - The clothes changing were good.
• Comical performance fit in well with the genre of the song.
• There is no story line but it fits in with the song, especially with the comical effect, it relates to the song but not directly as there is no relationship between the visuals and the lyrics apart from going separate ways.
• The concept we had was good.
• Craig's performance was good.
• The upbeat tempo and genre of the song has a good relationship with the visuals.
• What little lyrics there were fitted well with what was going on. "You go your way and I go mine" shows them going opposite directions after a confrontation. But as the song progresses they come back to each other, contrasting the lyrics and visuals. 

Final Video

What remains to be done...

• Research into filters and special effects
• Final cut of video & own assessment
• Feedback for another group on their music video
• Analysis of exhibition context for your music video
• Analyze a digipack conversion and an example of a real digipack with your evaluation
• Analysis of magazine adverts and examples of magazine adverts with your evaluation
• Analysis of old students digipack
• Analysis of old students magazine advert
• Ideas and research of your digipack
• Ideas of research for your magazine advert
• Feedback for another group on their ancillary task ideas
• Finished digipack plus analysis
• Finish magazine advert plus analysis
• Feedback on another groups ancillary task
• Planning for directors commentary: storyboard, scripts, etc.
• Directors commentary and analysis
• Other evaluation question posts

Strikethrough = Completed

Failing to Film

We had it planned that we were going to film on Thursday 10th November, however, on the day of filming we were all ready to film when a member of our group was unable to come due to unforeseen circumstances. We attempted to film without her, but with 1 person missing from a 4 person group, many of our plans were not able to come together so we had to make a back up plan to film and decided that we would film on Friday 11th November as we all have a time that we are free. As we were unable to film on our original date, we decided to improve our previous ideas and plan a lot more for what needs to be done for our final piece and re-think the filming schedule so when we try to film, it should flow a lot more smoothly.

We feel this was beneficial as we now feel a lot more prepared.

Contacting the Artist

Filming day of filming 10th november thursday

We have decided a day to film for our final cut, being this thursday before open evening so we can finish it all that day.

Location - Bottisham/stevens house.

Mese-en-scene - streets, office, bedroom, suits, casual clothing.

Time of day - 2pm

Meet up at stevens at 2pm filminf till finish at 4 go to longroad open evening for 5.

Continuity Issues

During the filming of our final product, there are many factors that could affect the outcome. A key factor that we will be looking out for is continuity.

Continuity within music video, TV show, film, etc. is something that always needs a lot of the directors focus. If there are continuity issues then it can distract the viewer and make the whole thing look rushed and low quality.

An example of bad continuity in the TV show 'Friends' follows:

(Source: Youtube, Moviemistakes)


Continuity mistakes can either be minor and hard to spot or it could be something that all viewers would notice that would distract the audience. We are aiming to address our continuity issues before they occur as during our music video, there is a 'bump' where to two characters collide and switch clothes and because everything needs to be filmed more than once just in case it doesn't go correctly, continuity will be a big deal and we intend to make our product have as few mistakes as possible.

Another continuity issue we need to watch out for is that because of the time of year, it isn't as light for as long, so we will need to make sure we film everything chronologically, as the slightest change the light can affect the entire product. However, with this issue, we would be likely to be able to fix it with editing if we needed to, but it would be better to not have to deal with it and to get it right first time. In order to prevent this, we have looked up the sunrise and sunset times so we have a vague idea of our timings.

Weather Forecast for Shooting

The weather for the day we are planning to film isn't good, but if it's a constant weather rather than changing multiple times throughout the day as this would cause continuity issues. However, the weather is subject to change so hopefully the outcome for the day will be different, as filming in the rain wouldn't be easy as it may cause continuity problems with people getting wet and clothes getting wet. Rain also tends to lead to more traffic in Cambridge, so there would be an increase in traffic and lights from cars my affect the shots. However if wouldn't be so much of an obstacle if we were in a village (Bottisham or Ashden), rather than in Cambridge city center (Brooklands Avenue or Sedley Taylor Road).

Possible Filming Locations

Location 1
Originally we were planning to film on Sedley Taylor Road in Cambridge near the college. We have decided that this would be a good location as it is central and practical, however it is a busy road and that would make the costume changes harder and continuity would be affected.

Location 2
Another location we were thinking of is Beechwood Avenue in Bottisham. As Steven lives in Bottisham it would be easy to get there and have somewhere to take breaks and keep some props and costumes in a dry place if the weather isn't good. However we were thinking that as Bottisham isn't a central village, it may be hard to get to for some, so it may work out that everyone may not be able to attend.

Location 3
We had also considered going to Ashden in Essex to film as it is a quiet village and Laura lives there so again we would have somewhere to store excess materials and wouldn't have to carry all the equipment around with us all day. However, because Ashden is in Essex and is quite far away from the college, it may be difficult for people to get there, and there is little public transport to the village.

Location 4
Another possibility of filming location would be Brooklands Avenue in Cambridge. This would be good as we would like a fairly long road to film on for the 'bump' scene which is key to story line of our music video. However because Brooklands Avenue is in the city centre and right near the train station, it would very busy and that would affect continuity potentially with cars coming and going, and having to do multiple takes may lead to weather changes.

Lip Sync Test

Despite not using lip syncing in our music video, we decided to test out our lip syncing editing ability in case we changed our minds on the day. We wouldn't make any drastic changes to our music video at this stage, there may be one or two points where we could fill in gaps by using lip syncing. We thought we were successful in doing this as we were able to sync the audio to the visuals with Look At Me Now - Chris Brown, Super Bass - Nicki Minaj and Starry Eyed - Ellie Goulding.

Planning For Filming

We have decided to film on Thursday 10th November and then editing that evening. The reason for doing this is because we would have a full day to film and it's a day we can all do so everyone would be present.

Rough cut analysis

within our rough cut we have some elements which we have decided didn't work as well as we first thought but also we have elements that worked in the way we expected. 

 First of all we have decided that we definitely need a bigger costume difference between the characters; over exaggerating on the characters persona and style of the character so it becomes more interesting to watch and then the swap is seen as more dramatic. Another thing we have decided that needs to be changed is the angle at which the two characters jump and bump into one another in order to keep good continuity and to keep the jump flowing and not jumping. 

 The things we would keep the same are things such as the story line itself and have more footage  to choose from and be able to have a longer running film - leading to a more complete story line which is continuous and is more in depth. We would also keep the two characters the same as if we changed them now the entire story in essence would change; being something we don't want to do. The characters would still be a very wealthy guy who has a very good high standard of living;  and then the opposite character being a much more underdressed guy in a tracksuit who seems to be stereotypically seen to have  much lower standard of living. 

Overall we believe that our rough cut was a good outline of what we would like to have as a final - however we would like it to be a more in depth view of the characters and also have the story line be clear. Costumes must be incorporated to a larger extent but our rough cut is still a good example for us to follow in our final video. 

Rough Cut feedback from Tanya

The basic premise of your video is promising and will be very engaging when it's developed.

You need:

At least two more performances, that you can use to cut to and from.
A much more developed sense of the gimick/premise. It needs to stand out and be more effects driven.

Feedback from P1-02 for Rough Cut

1. Editing

• Can be improved by better continuity through the shot changes
• There is jumps from each shot to the next
• You could shorten the shots and then incorporate them in a different order as there is only 3 shot types present at the 

2. Mise-en-Scene

• Casual costumes fit well with the genre 
• More variety of locations would be better

3. Camerawork

• The first tracking shot fits well with the fast beat of the song 
• Lack of different shot types, needs some close ups of the artist/s

4. Genre Elements

•  Needs to be quicker paced

5. Performance

• There is no performance present so this needs to be added in
• Lip syncing?
• There is a good sense of humour from some shots

6. What and how to improve

• Faster pace cuts to fit the beats of the song
• More variety of shot types  
• Needs lip syncing
• More engagement with camera and audience  
• Vary locations

Rough Cut