Evaluation Question One

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

To start off our investigation into our music video we firstly looked into suitable songs that were not signed to a well established record label, this would make it easier for us as a small group to gain consent from the organisation and band to use their song. After looking into this and receiving a fast response from ‘bud fox management’ we then decided as a group to look at other music videos and music video products to gain knowledge of the market and to give us the opportunity to develop our ideas.

When looking at other real media products we picked up a few techniques that we thought would look effective within the genre of our music video – ‘Indie rock’. 

Example – Kickstarts                                                   

When viewing this media product we were interested with the idea of feet tapping to the beat of the music. We felt that it would both fit in with the genre of the music and our target audience. To challenge this convention as a group we decided to only have one pair of feet tapping to the music (so there is no split screen). I feel that the outcome of this technique is very effective as we could use it through out the open sequence of our music video. We were able to split the opening sequence so that it alternated bewtween shots of the protagonists' face and shots of the feet. We wanted to inclded fast edits thorugh out the music video so that it linked and resembled edits with in the 'Kickstart' video. Unforunatly due to the bad quailty of the SD camera it is not as good quality as we first thought. Another factor was the dark lighting in the room. It would have been more suitable if we had lights to light the area. I have included a screen shot on the left from out music video to show how the shot challenges that of Examples.

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Another technique that we recognised with in the music video was the split screen just after the foot tap. Again we felt that this technique was very effective and would fit into almost everything in our music video. We particularly liked how the frames multiplied as the music progressed. To challenge this convention we chose to start with a black screen (bottom right) we then took clips from different sections of our music video that were significant with in the video and separated the verses. We made each clip gradually come onto the screen to that in time it would create a 9 way split. We then selected the frame we wanted and it would come out to reveal a full screen. The music video would then carry on. We did this in ever interlude.  Although the concept of the technique is the same we have modified it so much to fit the needs and opinions of our target audience that the link between the technique isnt that reconisable which is disapointing. However i feel that the outcome of this technique is excellent and adds aesthetic values to the overall macro effect of our video.

In terms of our digipack we looked at various colours, techniques and layouts that could be used. However we felt that it would be best to create a digipack that had strong relations between our music video. The strongest aspect to use was books - opens out, and we could design our own front cover. I had seen the 'Kaiser Chiefs' album cover before and remembered the distinct album cover of a book. As a group we felt that it would be an excellent idea to design and create our own book cover to fit in with the genre of our music video.

To challenge and develop this we decided to change the colour of the digipack to reflect the genre of the music, and also so consumers would buy our product due to the eyecatching colour. We also decided that it would be best for the title to be hand written so that it linked with the vynil at the beginning of our video. In comparison to the 'Kaiser chiefs' who have used black as the background colour and yellow as the label, also this stands out very well we felt that it would make the band look more like a rock band instead of indie rock. As a final outcome i feel that or digipack is the most successful aspect of our ancilary task as it has been well thought about and shows in our final outcome.

In terms of our poster we didnt look at specific existing media products when desinging it. Originally we had planned to look at music magazines etc but unforunatly due to issues eguarding our music video we didnt get round to doing this. I already had a few magazines but none of them included the type of content we were looking for to create our poster. As a group we decided to go forward and create our poster on photoshop and i feel the over all outcome of it is very effective.

Focus group

We have put together a small focus group in which we put quetions to them to them to get positive feedback. They have also watched our music video and we recieved very positive feedback from them. They felt that the animation was a really professional aspect of the video and works very well with our genre and music video. They felt that a few of the clips looked a bit basic and could have done with being a lot more imaginative, however on the whole the quality of the video was good and we recived the feedback we wanted to. In relation to our ancillary tasks they felt that it looked very professional and that it suited the genre well. They particularly liked how we had used the vynil through out our project. They felt it related well and created intertextual reference.

Changes in the industry

Today I found another news article documenting the changing music industry, this time focusing on the record label 'Mercury's decision to abandon the production of music singles on CD and vinyl. This is due to a huge drop in both CD and vinyl sales, with music download continuing to be the most popular consumer choice in regard to purchasing both singles and albums.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/12850186

DISASTER!!!!!

today i wasnt able to be in the lesson as i was helping another group out with thiers filming, however i heard from a very worried and upset group that when they had gone to open the timeline that all of our video was gone.....As i wasnt actually there i dont know the whole story but Mr Canning managed to sort it out and get all of it back, thank god because i dont know what we would have done as when they last marked the video it wasnt actually done so that would effected our grade alot. Mr Canning has now backed it up incase it happens again.

Working toward the final edit

After making many changes to our musio video we are now in the final stages of editing the animated sections. We are getting closer to the finished product and are mainly working on the original footage, mainly because the original footage was boring and the colout of the shots were dull and colourless. To improve this i have changed the brightness of the shots, this adds a lot more colour and makes it look alot more professional. It is also alot quicker as we do not have to re-upload footage and can simply use our timline to make it more visually interesting. Although animation is very time consuming it benefits the outcome of our video and makes it look a lot more professional. I have taken screen grabs from some of the animated sections....

The photos below show me and evie adding the final touches to the animation sections. Currently we are working on the chorus..'radio daylight, radio darkness' To create this we have cut down an original clip to a suitable length which means that it will not exceed the frame limit. I have then started to change the colour of the clip so it is brighter than the ones above, this give it a much better overall effect. Evie has been working on 'radio daylight'...and drawing a sun that stays static but will be sketchy when played as a clip. I have been woking on 'radio darkness' where i have drawn a moon and stars. Previously i made a sun that rose and set around our character which we have now saved, uploaded and slotted into our time line, this looks very effective and i am please with the outcome. We aim to finish the animation this week as it doesnt take very long to upload and slot into

Finishing our digipack

After a lot of hard work, scanning and editing we have finally finished our ancillary tasks of the poster and digipack.

Here is our poster design complete. We have put together a range of different screenshots from our video and made them look like Polaroid pictures so that we could arrange them behind the vinyl so that we have intertexual references between our music video and ancillary tasks

After researching a variety of different artists and bands and looking at thier album art work we felt it was best to create an album cover the resembled a book. Not only would it allows us to incorporate black, white and colour aspects but it would also make it easier for us to put in vital information such as; websites, institutions, barcodes and lyrics. We felt that it was most important to take note of the valiuable infromation we had recived from our target audience and try and achieve everything they had wanted in our research.i feel we have addressed this well and the final outcome is very successful. Instead of putting the lyrics on the front of our digipack we felt that the best option was to put it on the inside left cover so it is clearly visable when the digipack is opened. In terms of continuity we felt it best to carry on the theme of the poster onto our digipack because it shows how we have thought about the outcome and look of our overall ancillary task and shows a clear link between the two.

Here are the inside covers of our album. the top image is located on the left side of our digipack so that the lyrics are visable. The bottom image is located on the right hand side, behind the CD.

Production of the Digipack!

A

After creating a variety of different layouts and shapes for our digipack i decided to print off a template for each of us. We then drew on what we thought would create a successful digipack cover, taking into account all the feedback we had received. We tried to include all of the advice we had put together after creating audience research. After talking about ideas and we have combined sections of each of our ideas to come up with a rough outline of what our digipack will look like. Here is an image of the rough edit that/brain storm that we have put together to create an outline. (right)

Here is an image of me editing the vynil for our album cover. polaroid pictures in progress! 0ther images are available, however i am unable to upload them due to the type of file it is.

Magazine adverts

From looking at other magazine adverts from similar genres and types of bands we have found that most of the adverts have quite a simple approach to the presentation of the covers. They mainly include images of the band or images from a particular video. The title is then bold and noticable, however it works with the background covers and creates contrast. Here is an album cover that i feel represents the tpye of approach we wish to achieve when creating our poster -

The poster clearly states the song choice and the album that it has been taken from. I feel we need to address this in our poster to inform and attract our target audience. In comparison with this i feel the best option would be to take photos directly from our clip instead of the 'band' as we did not use a band in our video so would be irrelivant. In relation to our research, i feel we need to incorporate more black and white contrast so that it fits in with our target audiences needs.

Digi Pack: AUDIENCE RESEARCH!

Today we put together a number of questions that related to certain aspects of out digipack cover. We then put the questions to a small group of our target audience fans aged between 16-24. The questionnaire included questions that would determine the final outcome of our digi pack, for example; colour, images, type face and layout.

 From the results of this question it is evident that the album cover of our product most attract our target audience as it would encourage them to buy our overall final outcome. as aposed to downloading it via itunes or other legal download sites.

From the results of this question we can see that our target audience would be most attracted to an album cover that included both black, white and colour aspects. I feel this would work well as it would attracted more attension and therefore boost more potential sales. 

from the results of this it is clear that having the lyrics encorporated within our digipack would be recieved well by our target audience

  We also asked if our target audience would prefer to have a link to the bands web page. Although the difference is fairly close the majority of people asked would like to see the bands webpage encorparated into the digipack and album cover.

From the results of our research we can come to the conclusion that our digipack should contain; direct shots from our music video that clearrly show stages and progression with in the clip. The presentation should be with black, white and colour so that it attracts the audience and would convince them to buy in store and not online. We are going to include the lyrics of the song inside the digipack so that our target audience can see the lyrics. Finally our target audience would prefer us to include the website with in the final outcome, so we will fit this in so that they can be linked to the bands webpage.

Photoshop illustration

When we showed our rough edit of the music video to our target audience they said that some of the shots we had used of our main protagonist were boring and did not intrigue them. We felt that this way influence them not to buy our product. We felt that the best option to make the shots better was to edit them on Photoshop. As the lighting was already bad there was not much else we could do to them. As we had already tried to film actual leaves falling around our protagonist we felt that it would be a good idea to draw photoshoped leaved falling around him.

Because i was the only one that could use photoshop i was allocated the task of doing this which i didnt mind, however it took a considerable amount of time which we didnt account for. Along with these we chose to add photoshop writing that went with some of the lyrics - 'Eye for fashion' which i feel will suit the needs of the target audience and fit in with the genre and overall macro effect of our piece.

Illustration

Screen shots of editing

Here is another screen shot from our film. As a group we have now decided that the best option would be to get rid of the girl in the video because she doesnt fit in with the narrative or story line. However it is going to be much harder to fill the time with frames just of the boy as we are limited with what we can do.

Here is screen shot to show how we have edited together the dates so that they flow through quickly. As it needs to be very fast this section doesnt fill up as much space as it needs to which is disappointing considering how much time it took. The same with the books.

Research into animation

I have tried to find a way of helping us with animation, after a long search i have managed to find a website that clearly states how to use photoshop correctly so get a professional look....here is the link

http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/animation/animation.htm