Music Video Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We developed the forms and conventions of a real media product by first of all researching the conventions of real up and coming indie band of today. The genre of our music video was important in the production. To make our product as authentic as possible we largely based our production on the live performance, tying in some narrative which related to the lyrics. We used the same location for both the performance and narrative so that our audiences would relate to both and be alble to follow along with the plotline. Our video had a strong female lead just like two of our researched bands ‘The gossip’ and also ‘Paramore’. To make our video as effective as possible, we chose the location carefully and found one that was edgy and rough, just like the look of our band. The costumes were also a big part of the intended genre, these were influenced by the band ‘Paramore’. The lyrics had an impact on the performance and the narrative, the lyrics ‘this ain’’t real’ gave us the idea of making the whole performance and portrayed image abstract and unrealistic, to do this we made Tom look like a mime by painting his face and wearing black and white, this went against normality, to keep to the indie genre he also wore skinny jeans and a tight top. To add interest and make viewing more enjoyable, we made the main female lead costume, colourful in contrast to the black and white mime costume. ***We also challenged the typical conventions of a real indie band by having our narrative linked to some of the lyrics, which is unusual in such a performance based genre. We also challenged the usual indie conventions by using final-cut and duplicating Tom (our mime character) in some scenes highlighting the lyrics again ‘this ain’t real’, by each performer on screen being the same person.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The combination of both our ancillary texts and main product is very effective. We made sure that both the texts and our main product complimented each other and the audience could make reference between them and be able to recognise one from the other. We also wanted to carry through the conventions and genre of our indie band. To do this we did many things; to continue the atmosphere and theme of the music video, whilst filming we took many posed and natural photo’s of the band (Tom and I) on location. The photo’s could also be given as a freebie (behind the scenes photo’s and the making of) These we used in both the poster and the digipak. The idea of having one continuous landmark that could then be a trademark of our band was founded when we stumbled upon a rusty old car that we thought looked really edgy and unrealistic (perfect for our bands image) this we used in both ancillary texts. This consistent image shown in all aspects of our product challenges the mainstream styles of music, again bringing in the conventions of an abstract indie band. To make our poster look more real and professional we used many well known labels and franchises that fitted the genre. Using ‘NME’ showed that our band was in the indie rock scene of today and was accredited by them. We also used ‘NME’ as our magazine rating, as ‘NME’ being such a popular magazine to our target audience we thought it would be a good idea to have a rating from them, we realised our original 5* rating was a bit too ambitious we took it down to 4*, this stemmed from the feedback we gathered. This was also shown in the use of ‘myspace.com’ as our sponsor, we chose ‘myspace’ because this is where many of the up and coming indie bands put up tracks and where we would find our largest online fan base, we chose not to use ‘facebook’ because it is a more family network website whereas myspace is more edgy and young, this fitted our target audience. Our use of ‘HMV’ on our poster showed where our audience could purchase our product in a popular store, this was part of our marketing campaign. We also develop real media products through the use of the competition in the left hand side of our digipak, this was done as a way to connect and entice the intended audience of unsigned bands and to promote the release of the new album and 2010 tour. The ‘Out Now’ banner we put on the poster shows fans that everything is brand new and they should get it fast, it also promotes the fact that the music video is also on the album invites the viewer to buy it because it gives it an extra unusual factor, we thought this was a good selling point.
To carry on the consistency of our ancillary texts we regulated the fonts we used in the poster and digipak. The font we used for ‘Apollo Station’ acquired from ‘dafont.com’ suited our band because of the messy look it gave. We used the same font and size for both ancillary texts so it was recognisable. The font used for our tour dates and competition was quite childish and scruffy, this linked to our target audience and make it look more personal.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback has overall been really positive and very helpful in progressing and making our products better and more suitable for our peers and other audiences. By gathering feedback from our peers we learnt what could be better suited for our target audience. The ages of our peers helped because they were the age band we were initially aiming at. Many said that the poster and digipak were very effective together and would entice them to buy the album because of its striking image. They helped by commenting on some of the lettering being a little hard to read due to the font and how close it was together this lead us to spreading it out and in turn it looked more professional not just appealing. The feedback that we had from the industry was really useful, and ‘Ex Art-editior from Future Music Magazine’ described our ancillary texts as very professional and “the overall design lets me know exactly what kind of band we’ve got here”. This really pleased us because this is what we wanted to achieve. He also commented that the 5*’s we had given our album was unrealistic and far-fetched therefore we changed them to 4*. Also the clarity of the album name wasn’t great so we changed the layout to improve this.
Other comments we received was due to continuity errors in our final cut, these were the split screen looking too obvious due to the light changes, we worked hard to correct this by playing with the colours and got it as good as could be achieved. The feedback has all been helpful and encouraging allowing us to make the most of our products. To allow maximum potential of our feedback, if it was issued earlier it would have allowed us to continually tweak and perfect the final product.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Using new media technologies helped us greatly in the process of making of our final products. Initially we extensively used the internet to research the genre, forms and conventions of the band and the song we were using ‘Be your own PET’ ‘girls on TV’, this proved very useful because we learnt what sort of attitude ‘Be your own PET’ have and gave us an idea on our initial pitch. Other bands were researched for inspiration and reference such as ‘Ok Go’ and ‘Paramore’ . Using the internet for ‘dafont.com’ allowed us to get more interesting fonts not just the normal ‘word fonts’. Also the ‘longroadmedia’ blog was used for blogging and feedback. We posted blogs allowing our group and peers to read, feedback and contribute to ideas and production meetings. The use of camera phones and Bluetooth allowed us to share as a group possible locations and things that we had seen that would add to the overall product, USB sticks were also used for personal blogging and editing at home. Once we began filming we used a camera, tri-pod and C.D player. We used the camera to capture all of the footage needed to edit into our music video. The tri-pod was used for a large variety of shots including low, high, close up, wide-angle and panning, also for all of the performance so that it was steady and precise. We also used the camera hand-held to give the rough/running look, we used this in a lot of our narrative shots. The C.D player was used to enable us to lip-sinc when the footage was uploaded via a flashdrive. After the completion of filming the next step was to use final cut in editing our footage, lip-sinking and adding the soundtrack.
For the two ancillary texts, the most compatible choice was photoshop, this was used to manipulate the images used and to add text and labels to create our final digipak and poster.
We used still cameras to take photos of our location and filming process for the blogging. We also took photo’s of the band member’s having their make up done which we could use for the behind the scenes pictures for the digipak. ITunes was also used for us to first choose our song then to convert it so we could put it onto final cut to produce our music video.
Bryony Craig-Matthews
Daniela Di Raimo's music video evaluation
Evaluation for Music Video
1) We developed forms and conventions of real media products by making our video as realistic and similar to the popular indie genre bands that are the industry today. Our video was strongly based on a live performance, with a strong female lead, and we brought in a narrative in reflection of the lyrics. For example we took the lyrics “my other half wants to run away with me” and shot a scene where the lead female (Bryony) was running away from the band member (Tom).
There was also the line “and this ain’t real”, which gave us the idea of making Tom seem abstract, different and unrealistic. We made Tom look like a mime by painting his face and he wore black and white clothing, to make it seem strange and not real. This needed to be done to show that Tom’s outfit as a mime goes against normality. Tom also wore skinny jeans and a tight hoodie and t-shirt to keep the indie look throughout the band.
The image of the band was important when creating a look and style that was edgy and indie. We got ideas from the bands “The Gossip” and “Paramore”, by going onto Google and finding photos of them and also by searching on YouTube some performances of the band.
We dressed Bryony in the typical indie clothing which consisted of pink leopard print tights and an oversized t-shirt. It was a messy look which looked cool and laid back, and we thought it fit the video perfectly. Our target audience would also wear this sort of outfit so we by choosing something similar to that would make it more appealing to our audience of indie-lovers who are 15+ years old.
Our location for our music video was a run down industrial estate and a forest which had not been taken care of, with various objects in it. We thought of our locations while we were planning as we wanted somewhere edgy, run down and somewhere that looked slightly rebellious, as if we shouldn’t be there. This also goes with the theme of youth rebellion as media stereotypes young indie youths to cause trouble, and we broke this stereotype as our band was only playing instruments and being creative, instead of being destructive.
Our setting was plain and the colours were dull to show a massive contrast between the band members and the background.
In our forest setting, there was an old rusty car that we used in our video and our digipak. We filmed and took photos of our band members in the car, on the car and around the car to show again the rebellious side to them, as it shows that whatever they find they will use.
By using Tom playing an instrument but showing 3 of him was effective and challenged forms and conventions in media products as it is not usually done as usually the whole band performs rather than just one musician, so we thought it was original and effective in the end.
2) The combination of our main product and ancillary texts was effective as we linked the two in many ways. We used photos from the location we shot the music video to put into the digipak and poster/magazine cover. The shots from the forest weren’t taken for the purpose of the digipak, they were simply taken for behind the scenes shots to put onto our blog, but we then decided, as they looked professional, we could use them in our digipak/magazine cover.
We used the car in our digipak and poster to show a continuous use of it as it symbolises a lot in our video, so we wanted to show this in our digipak and poster too. We thought that it could be recognisable to the audience as Apollo Stations main object in our upcoming videos. Putting these photos into the digipak/magazine cover showed that by buying the CD and poster, the purchaser would then have “behind the scenes” images of the settings that we used. We thought that this was a good selling point as our target audience would care a lot about what they are spending their money on, as they would mostly be students, so they would want some extra’s thrown into the digipak and whatever else they were buying.
We used familiar labels and franchises such as “hmv” to show that popular stores would be stocking our CD and merchandise and they are all high street purchases that anyone can buy. By placing the “hmv” logo on the poster, we thought it looked as if the CD was accredited by “hmv”, therefore good enough to be placed in the store. As “hmv” is a popular and well known place for people to purchase music and other technologies, our target audience would see the logo and instantly recognise it to be a place where up to date music would be sold, therefore this is another selling point.
We also used “NME” as our rating magazine as we thought a phrase or star rating from this magazine would look good on our poster. As it is such a popular magazine for new films, music and other such like popular pass times, it is recognisable to the buyer as a reputable source of information on this sort of subject. Our rating was originally 5 stars, but with feedback we then changed it to 4 as “NME” is tough at ratings so 5 stars was slightly far fetched. “NME” is bought by males and females who are teens and years older as its target audience is rather large, therefore we came to the conclusion that it is the best magazine to put on our poster.
We used myspace.com as our sponsor. Myspace.com is known for promoting unsigned bands as well as signed bands, and from researching this we found that most people went on myspace.com to search for music as opposed to facebook, as that is more of a mellow family site, whereas myspace.com is more of an indie, edgy site. We went with the conventions of a real indie band as we thought their fan base would all be on myspace.com.
The font we used in our poster and CD were the same as we wanted to keep them consistent and graphically recognisable to the purchaser. Apollo Stations’ font is a font we found on dafont.com and we thought it looked edgy, messy and rusty. It suited the band well.
Our tour dates font was also found on the above site and we thought it looked slightly American and reminded us of teenagers due to the simple, hand-drawn and scruffy lettering, therefore also linking to our target audience.
3) We learnt many things from our audience feedback and have used it all to improve our music video and digipak. By gathering feedback from our peers, we changed our video to suit their queries as they are our main target audience – teens of about 17+ years old. We changed our poster/video to make it more appealing, for example we asked our audience which photo they preferred to be on the CD and by process of elimination we found which photo suited the CD the most.
We also had an email from the ex art editor of Future Music magazine. By gathering feedback which was relevant as it’s from someone in the industry, we realised as a production team realise how precise and specific we had to be with our wording, our sizing and where to put certain things. The ex art editor gave us ideas on how to make our poster more appealing, for example we had written down 5 stars as the rating from “NME” but we were told in the email feedback to only put 4 stars as 5 stars was rather extravagant in a newly signed band. We took this into consideration and realised that he was right, therefore changing this.
The ex art editor also mentioned that it was confusing to see the letters “T” and “V” at the right hand side of the TV around Tom’s head, so we changed it by putting the letters either side of the TV. We could then see that it was a lot clearer and we managed to alter this mistake to make it better.
In the email, a quote was “The overall design lets me know what kind of band we’ve got here straight away”. This was our intention and by seeing this written by someone else, it has given us the confidence that we have done our job fulfilling its purpose.
In retrospect, I think we should have probably asked for feedback at the beginning of the project and asked our target audience what they would expect to see after listening to the track, and doing some more research of Be your own PET (the tracks original band) to see what sort of music videos created. But then we thought better of this, as by going against this idea we have made our video more original and we haven’t feared over copying anyone.
The feedback we gathered overall was positive and we think we have created a piece that links well with the target audience.
4) We used media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages by using the internet for most of our project. We first had to use YouTube to search other indie bands such as The Gossip and Paramore to see what kind of videos they had made and also what they were wearing, along with noting down how the live performances were set, staged and delivered. This proved very useful as the information we gathered was relevant to our own music video and we used some ideas from various other videos to combine an overall idea for ours.
We used www.dafont.com to get our fonts for Apollo Stations’ name and tour dates. We thought that all of the fonts on Microsoft Word had been used before and looked slightly boring, so by searching for fonts on the internet made it seem as if they were our own fonts and original to the band. By searching on this website we hoped that nobody had seen the font before and that our band was the first to claim it.
We had to search on Google for our TV image to put around Tom’s face in our poster. This wasn’t easy as we had to keep changing the wording in the search box to find the exact TV that we wanted.
We used the Blogger.com for the planning process to share our ideas if one of us couldn’t make the production meeting, to record plans so none of us would forget ideas and another could develop on it, and to record our progress. It is interesting to look back on our earlier blogs to see how similar and different our music video is now to how we imagined it weeks ago.
Final Cut was used to cut, edit, add and delete sound for our music video. This programme was vital as without it our footage would just be what we captured on camera, which was 35 minutes long. We had to use it and play around with it to get the lip syncing and instrument syncing perfect.
We used Adobe Photoshop to make and edit out magazine cover and CD and to make it look professional. By placing a photo we had taken on our camera into Photoshop, we managed to add fonts, pictures from the internet and various other things to our magazine cover to make it look effective and interesting.
We had to use still cameras to take photos of our location for the blogging. We also had to take photos of our band and location for our digipak and behind the scenes photos. There were photos taken of the band members make up being done to show the process of before doing a live performance and how much time goes into all the fine details.
We also had to use video cameras to capture our music video. We sometimes used a tripod for this, and other times used the hand held effect.
A stereo was used to play the track when we were filming so the band members had something to mime/sing to when we were filming, to get the timing correct.
We used our phones to take photos of the setting and used Bluetooth on the computers to transfer this information onto them, to then put onto the blog or Photoshop.
USB sticks were used to transfer information from one computer to another.
iTunes was also used for us to first choose our song then to convert it so we could put it onto final cut to produce our music video.
We’ve also used Final Cut to combine talking head footage with your final products for the Evaluation.
1) We developed forms and conventions of real media products by making our video as realistic and similar to the popular indie genre bands that are the industry today. Our video was strongly based on a live performance, with a strong female lead, and we brought in a narrative in reflection of the lyrics. For example we took the lyrics “my other half wants to run away with me” and shot a scene where the lead female (Bryony) was running away from the band member (Tom).
There was also the line “and this ain’t real”, which gave us the idea of making Tom seem abstract, different and unrealistic. We made Tom look like a mime by painting his face and he wore black and white clothing, to make it seem strange and not real. This needed to be done to show that Tom’s outfit as a mime goes against normality. Tom also wore skinny jeans and a tight hoodie and t-shirt to keep the indie look throughout the band.
The image of the band was important when creating a look and style that was edgy and indie. We got ideas from the bands “The Gossip” and “Paramore”, by going onto Google and finding photos of them and also by searching on YouTube some performances of the band.
We dressed Bryony in the typical indie clothing which consisted of pink leopard print tights and an oversized t-shirt. It was a messy look which looked cool and laid back, and we thought it fit the video perfectly. Our target audience would also wear this sort of outfit so we by choosing something similar to that would make it more appealing to our audience of indie-lovers who are 15+ years old.
Our location for our music video was a run down industrial estate and a forest which had not been taken care of, with various objects in it. We thought of our locations while we were planning as we wanted somewhere edgy, run down and somewhere that looked slightly rebellious, as if we shouldn’t be there. This also goes with the theme of youth rebellion as media stereotypes young indie youths to cause trouble, and we broke this stereotype as our band was only playing instruments and being creative, instead of being destructive.
Our setting was plain and the colours were dull to show a massive contrast between the band members and the background.
In our forest setting, there was an old rusty car that we used in our video and our digipak. We filmed and took photos of our band members in the car, on the car and around the car to show again the rebellious side to them, as it shows that whatever they find they will use.
By using Tom playing an instrument but showing 3 of him was effective and challenged forms and conventions in media products as it is not usually done as usually the whole band performs rather than just one musician, so we thought it was original and effective in the end.
2) The combination of our main product and ancillary texts was effective as we linked the two in many ways. We used photos from the location we shot the music video to put into the digipak and poster/magazine cover. The shots from the forest weren’t taken for the purpose of the digipak, they were simply taken for behind the scenes shots to put onto our blog, but we then decided, as they looked professional, we could use them in our digipak/magazine cover.
We used the car in our digipak and poster to show a continuous use of it as it symbolises a lot in our video, so we wanted to show this in our digipak and poster too. We thought that it could be recognisable to the audience as Apollo Stations main object in our upcoming videos. Putting these photos into the digipak/magazine cover showed that by buying the CD and poster, the purchaser would then have “behind the scenes” images of the settings that we used. We thought that this was a good selling point as our target audience would care a lot about what they are spending their money on, as they would mostly be students, so they would want some extra’s thrown into the digipak and whatever else they were buying.
We used familiar labels and franchises such as “hmv” to show that popular stores would be stocking our CD and merchandise and they are all high street purchases that anyone can buy. By placing the “hmv” logo on the poster, we thought it looked as if the CD was accredited by “hmv”, therefore good enough to be placed in the store. As “hmv” is a popular and well known place for people to purchase music and other technologies, our target audience would see the logo and instantly recognise it to be a place where up to date music would be sold, therefore this is another selling point.
We also used “NME” as our rating magazine as we thought a phrase or star rating from this magazine would look good on our poster. As it is such a popular magazine for new films, music and other such like popular pass times, it is recognisable to the buyer as a reputable source of information on this sort of subject. Our rating was originally 5 stars, but with feedback we then changed it to 4 as “NME” is tough at ratings so 5 stars was slightly far fetched. “NME” is bought by males and females who are teens and years older as its target audience is rather large, therefore we came to the conclusion that it is the best magazine to put on our poster.
We used myspace.com as our sponsor. Myspace.com is known for promoting unsigned bands as well as signed bands, and from researching this we found that most people went on myspace.com to search for music as opposed to facebook, as that is more of a mellow family site, whereas myspace.com is more of an indie, edgy site. We went with the conventions of a real indie band as we thought their fan base would all be on myspace.com.
The font we used in our poster and CD were the same as we wanted to keep them consistent and graphically recognisable to the purchaser. Apollo Stations’ font is a font we found on dafont.com and we thought it looked edgy, messy and rusty. It suited the band well.
Our tour dates font was also found on the above site and we thought it looked slightly American and reminded us of teenagers due to the simple, hand-drawn and scruffy lettering, therefore also linking to our target audience.
3) We learnt many things from our audience feedback and have used it all to improve our music video and digipak. By gathering feedback from our peers, we changed our video to suit their queries as they are our main target audience – teens of about 17+ years old. We changed our poster/video to make it more appealing, for example we asked our audience which photo they preferred to be on the CD and by process of elimination we found which photo suited the CD the most.
We also had an email from the ex art editor of Future Music magazine. By gathering feedback which was relevant as it’s from someone in the industry, we realised as a production team realise how precise and specific we had to be with our wording, our sizing and where to put certain things. The ex art editor gave us ideas on how to make our poster more appealing, for example we had written down 5 stars as the rating from “NME” but we were told in the email feedback to only put 4 stars as 5 stars was rather extravagant in a newly signed band. We took this into consideration and realised that he was right, therefore changing this.
The ex art editor also mentioned that it was confusing to see the letters “T” and “V” at the right hand side of the TV around Tom’s head, so we changed it by putting the letters either side of the TV. We could then see that it was a lot clearer and we managed to alter this mistake to make it better.
In the email, a quote was “The overall design lets me know what kind of band we’ve got here straight away”. This was our intention and by seeing this written by someone else, it has given us the confidence that we have done our job fulfilling its purpose.
In retrospect, I think we should have probably asked for feedback at the beginning of the project and asked our target audience what they would expect to see after listening to the track, and doing some more research of Be your own PET (the tracks original band) to see what sort of music videos created. But then we thought better of this, as by going against this idea we have made our video more original and we haven’t feared over copying anyone.
The feedback we gathered overall was positive and we think we have created a piece that links well with the target audience.
4) We used media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages by using the internet for most of our project. We first had to use YouTube to search other indie bands such as The Gossip and Paramore to see what kind of videos they had made and also what they were wearing, along with noting down how the live performances were set, staged and delivered. This proved very useful as the information we gathered was relevant to our own music video and we used some ideas from various other videos to combine an overall idea for ours.
We used www.dafont.com to get our fonts for Apollo Stations’ name and tour dates. We thought that all of the fonts on Microsoft Word had been used before and looked slightly boring, so by searching for fonts on the internet made it seem as if they were our own fonts and original to the band. By searching on this website we hoped that nobody had seen the font before and that our band was the first to claim it.
We had to search on Google for our TV image to put around Tom’s face in our poster. This wasn’t easy as we had to keep changing the wording in the search box to find the exact TV that we wanted.
We used the Blogger.com for the planning process to share our ideas if one of us couldn’t make the production meeting, to record plans so none of us would forget ideas and another could develop on it, and to record our progress. It is interesting to look back on our earlier blogs to see how similar and different our music video is now to how we imagined it weeks ago.
Final Cut was used to cut, edit, add and delete sound for our music video. This programme was vital as without it our footage would just be what we captured on camera, which was 35 minutes long. We had to use it and play around with it to get the lip syncing and instrument syncing perfect.
We used Adobe Photoshop to make and edit out magazine cover and CD and to make it look professional. By placing a photo we had taken on our camera into Photoshop, we managed to add fonts, pictures from the internet and various other things to our magazine cover to make it look effective and interesting.
We had to use still cameras to take photos of our location for the blogging. We also had to take photos of our band and location for our digipak and behind the scenes photos. There were photos taken of the band members make up being done to show the process of before doing a live performance and how much time goes into all the fine details.
We also had to use video cameras to capture our music video. We sometimes used a tripod for this, and other times used the hand held effect.
A stereo was used to play the track when we were filming so the band members had something to mime/sing to when we were filming, to get the timing correct.
We used our phones to take photos of the setting and used Bluetooth on the computers to transfer this information onto them, to then put onto the blog or Photoshop.
USB sticks were used to transfer information from one computer to another.
iTunes was also used for us to first choose our song then to convert it so we could put it onto final cut to produce our music video.
We’ve also used Final Cut to combine talking head footage with your final products for the Evaluation.
Tom Jake's Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product uses the typical live performance convention of existing media products. This is due to the fact that our chosen song, Girls On T.V by Be Your Own PET, was a very heavily instrumental influenced song. The way we develop this convention is by working the narrative around the location of the live performance so both the performance and the plotline are given this sense of merging. Having a narrative also challenges the typical conventions of an instrument based band. Most instrument based bands, for example, Paramore, seem to generally produce mostly instrument based videos, focusing more on the performance of the band as opposed to any storyline that may reside within the lyrics. Having our narrative linked to the lyrics and to the live performance helps challenge the typical conventions. Our ancillary tasks, the digipak and the promotional poster, also use typical conventions. Our chosen song is an Indie song and the ancillary tasks fit in well with the typical indie conventions. The digipak contains images of Bryony and me in an alternative indie environment, i.e. the middle of the woods near a rusted out car. This is typical indie as it is edgy and different and tries to challenge the mainstream style of music. Our poster is also that of a typical indie style as again it shows both Bryony and me in the run down setting. We done this to try and keep consistency so people would recognise our products. The way our digipak develops real media products is through the use of a competition. We introduced a competition within the inside left of the digipak. This was done as a way to connect with the fans of the band as most existing bands have some kind of offer or free gift i.e. poster badges to promote the release of there new album.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The combination of both our main product and ancillary texts worked well as they both complemented each other. There is a scene in our music video which contains Bryony and me running through the woods with the rusted out car in the background. We decided to use the woods and the car as a theme as it fits in with the edgy, alternative convention of the indie rock band. On both our poster and digipak we continued to use the woods and car theme. This would also be used for the benefit of our audiences. Because the theme is recurring audiences and fans would be able to see our products and instantly recognise them and associate them with the band. The recurring theme ties in with bands such as ‘Them Crooked Vultures’ who used the recurring theme of a vultures head on top of a human body. The poster also combines well with the video and digipak as the poster issues an ‘album out now’ label. This would show fans not only who we are but would direct them towards the album which also contains the actual music video. I think the recurring theme of the car and the woods would encourage people who knew of the product to buy it as they would instantly recognise it.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Our audience feedback in general was very positive. However there was one issue at first which received many comments and that was on our splitscreen technique. This involved having three moving images of me on the screen at the same time. We had lined them up and timed them together very well but the issue came with the lighting. A lot of comments were about the natural lighting and how the three splits didn’t quiet match up due to the lighting. This was fixed as best as it could be through adjusting the lighting on the stills. We also received comments on the cuts. To begin with our cuts seemed slow and sloppy and were encouraged to make quick snappy shots. We done this once we had an opportunity to re-film and gain a larger variety of shots. The completed feedback received much positive feedback. Our ancillary texts also received positive feedback. A colleague of our teachers had been sent our promotional poster and commented on it saying they knew what to expect straight away. This means that our idea to create an edgy poster to promote an indie rock band was successful. Our digipak also received positive feedback. We had been told by other media students that it looked like a believable C.D cover that would be sold in shops. There was however the issue of the track listings. Some people struggled to read the font due to the colour of the actual font in contrast to the colour of the background.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used new media technologies throughout the process of creating our music video. Initially we began with the new long road media music video blog. We posted blogs recording our current process as well as using posts to inform of upcoming events such as filming, production meetings etc. We then employed the use of a phone camera and regular camera in order to take photos of the location of which we were going to film. These were later uploaded and placed on the blog. Once filming began we used a camera, a tripod and a c.d. player. The camera was used to capture footage necessary for the music video. We used the tripod in order to gather a range of angled shots, either high or low. The c.d. player was used to play our chosen song so we could easily work out timings once the footage was uploaded. This all had to be uploaded to final cut. We used final cut to cut up footage, lengthen it, shorten it etc. This time we used it to resize frames in order to fit more shots into one. We also had to cut frames in order to get the split screen effect of the three of me. For the ancillary texts we used primarily photo shop. This was used to edit pictures and layout for both our digipak and promotional posters.
Our media product uses the typical live performance convention of existing media products. This is due to the fact that our chosen song, Girls On T.V by Be Your Own PET, was a very heavily instrumental influenced song. The way we develop this convention is by working the narrative around the location of the live performance so both the performance and the plotline are given this sense of merging. Having a narrative also challenges the typical conventions of an instrument based band. Most instrument based bands, for example, Paramore, seem to generally produce mostly instrument based videos, focusing more on the performance of the band as opposed to any storyline that may reside within the lyrics. Having our narrative linked to the lyrics and to the live performance helps challenge the typical conventions. Our ancillary tasks, the digipak and the promotional poster, also use typical conventions. Our chosen song is an Indie song and the ancillary tasks fit in well with the typical indie conventions. The digipak contains images of Bryony and me in an alternative indie environment, i.e. the middle of the woods near a rusted out car. This is typical indie as it is edgy and different and tries to challenge the mainstream style of music. Our poster is also that of a typical indie style as again it shows both Bryony and me in the run down setting. We done this to try and keep consistency so people would recognise our products. The way our digipak develops real media products is through the use of a competition. We introduced a competition within the inside left of the digipak. This was done as a way to connect with the fans of the band as most existing bands have some kind of offer or free gift i.e. poster badges to promote the release of there new album.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The combination of both our main product and ancillary texts worked well as they both complemented each other. There is a scene in our music video which contains Bryony and me running through the woods with the rusted out car in the background. We decided to use the woods and the car as a theme as it fits in with the edgy, alternative convention of the indie rock band. On both our poster and digipak we continued to use the woods and car theme. This would also be used for the benefit of our audiences. Because the theme is recurring audiences and fans would be able to see our products and instantly recognise them and associate them with the band. The recurring theme ties in with bands such as ‘Them Crooked Vultures’ who used the recurring theme of a vultures head on top of a human body. The poster also combines well with the video and digipak as the poster issues an ‘album out now’ label. This would show fans not only who we are but would direct them towards the album which also contains the actual music video. I think the recurring theme of the car and the woods would encourage people who knew of the product to buy it as they would instantly recognise it.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Our audience feedback in general was very positive. However there was one issue at first which received many comments and that was on our splitscreen technique. This involved having three moving images of me on the screen at the same time. We had lined them up and timed them together very well but the issue came with the lighting. A lot of comments were about the natural lighting and how the three splits didn’t quiet match up due to the lighting. This was fixed as best as it could be through adjusting the lighting on the stills. We also received comments on the cuts. To begin with our cuts seemed slow and sloppy and were encouraged to make quick snappy shots. We done this once we had an opportunity to re-film and gain a larger variety of shots. The completed feedback received much positive feedback. Our ancillary texts also received positive feedback. A colleague of our teachers had been sent our promotional poster and commented on it saying they knew what to expect straight away. This means that our idea to create an edgy poster to promote an indie rock band was successful. Our digipak also received positive feedback. We had been told by other media students that it looked like a believable C.D cover that would be sold in shops. There was however the issue of the track listings. Some people struggled to read the font due to the colour of the actual font in contrast to the colour of the background.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used new media technologies throughout the process of creating our music video. Initially we began with the new long road media music video blog. We posted blogs recording our current process as well as using posts to inform of upcoming events such as filming, production meetings etc. We then employed the use of a phone camera and regular camera in order to take photos of the location of which we were going to film. These were later uploaded and placed on the blog. Once filming began we used a camera, a tripod and a c.d. player. The camera was used to capture footage necessary for the music video. We used the tripod in order to gather a range of angled shots, either high or low. The c.d. player was used to play our chosen song so we could easily work out timings once the footage was uploaded. This all had to be uploaded to final cut. We used final cut to cut up footage, lengthen it, shorten it etc. This time we used it to resize frames in order to fit more shots into one. We also had to cut frames in order to get the split screen effect of the three of me. For the ancillary texts we used primarily photo shop. This was used to edit pictures and layout for both our digipak and promotional posters.
Music Video Project Evaluation by Claire Millett
In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media products developed the conventional Indie-Rock ideas behind real media products. For example, Indie-Rock videos are usually performance based to emphasise the importance of a ‘real musician’ in today’s music industry that is continuously undermined by reality television stars. However, our performance was not particularly conventional as we created a band by duplicating the mime character which featured in our video as a link to our narrative which gave the video more depth and interest for the viewer. We made the opening sequence eye catching by using a split screen to introduce the instruments of the song. The singer of the band was focused on through her appearance being bright, colourful and individual which made a strong contrast to the black and white of the mime’s costume. We decided to duplicate the mime character to add to the surrealism of the narrative as it linked to the lyrics “and this ain’t real like the girls on TV”. This factor reflects the lyrics as instead of using a typically dressed boy and making a fairytale romance as found on TV we used the confusing motif of a mime to highlight the singer’s confusion and anxiety. This type of scenario is that of which many listeners are able to relate to which the production group thought was ideal because music is commonly used to influence and inspire its listeners creatively.
Another reason for including a narrative within the video in order to create the image of our band as unique, abstract and avant garde. This is due to the fact that the image of musicians does remain as an important factor as it can be used to market the band and also influences the fans with several artists of today also being known for their personal and often controversial style such as Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. Whilst researching we found several bands such as The Gossip and Paramore influential with the image and style that the videos portrayed. This is because Paramore also feature a woman lead singer making the focus of several of their videos on her and also the band used conventions of live performances and then developed them to create an edgy and unique style. The image of the Gossip was also influential, particularly in the video for ‘Heavy Cross’. The iconic clothes and make up of Beth Ditto made the song powerful and it also featured elements of a live performance. The ideals of the two bands were similar to that of what the group aspired to create.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The two products were designed to compliment each other well and this aim has been achieved. From planning well in advance the group was able to have a photo shoot on set of the music video, this helped with timing later on in the project as it gave us a longer opportunity to edit the images. It also meant the photographs used were of higher quality and the image that was created of the band made the ancillary texts bold, edgy and vibrant. The car, which features in the music video, was also used in the ancillary texts as an iconic and original prop in order to create a link between all of the products for the audience. The digi-pak used similar images to that of the magazine advert which meant that audiences could easily find the album recognisable from seeing the advert. We put an image of a television on the male band member, rather than the female, as a link to the music video of it not being a fairytale romance as seen on television and that the obscure mime character was the lead singer’s own version of that in reality. We also included an ‘out now’ banner on the advert with the HMV symbol so that audiences would be encouraged to go and find the album within those stores.
Usually in the industry, the release of a new album results with a tour to promote it. Because of this, we added tour dates to our magazine advert in hope of creating the image of a realistic and modern Indie-rock band. The competition which features within the digi-pak is given authenticity from the sponsorship of the popular social networking website, Myspace. The website is regularly used by many music fans as well as artists making it an ideal feature for the band to be involved in. Also, the support shown to unsigned bands is designed to create popularity, publicity and success for the band within the industry. In addition to featuring Myspace, we also used references to NME music magazine which we knew to be popular with our target audiences as it is popularly read by Indie-Rock fans and the magazine is renowned for their annual award shows - of which Apollo Station had been awarded best newcomer and four stars for the album – with these factors making the magazine ideal. The font we chose reflected the image of the band as edgy and messy and we found it to be a good symbol of the band which would be recognisable in the industry.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Overall, we received very positive feedback for example “the overall design lets me know exactly what kind of band we’ve got here” (ex-art editor of Future Music Magazine). This was what we wanted to achieve: the image of a band, rather than just a video, that would please the eye of the public and the industry. The feedback we received on the rough cut edition of our video highlighted that our video did not have enough cuts throughout making the pace a lot slower than it needed to be to create an authentic video. For our final cut we made a strong effort to correct this and made the video quicker and also added in a new sequence throughout the instrumental section which we cut to fit the beat – this had a lot of positive feedback for the final cut. Another issue that we had with the rough cut was the split screen looking too obvious due to change in light quality in between takes. For the final cut we corrected the colours to the best of our ability and made the effect much more subtle. Also, for our final cut we included more close-ups of the singer to add more focus onto her as requested from the feedback on our rough cut. Other feedback we received led to rethinking the layout of the magazine advert and also how we would use the features within the ancillary texts such as NME and Myspace to effective but realistic use. For example, we made the text on the NME award headline smaller to put more focus on the band name.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Predominantly, the Internet was our main source for researching the conventional music videos that fitted our genre. This meant that YouTube was particularly useful in addition to the production team’s online blog. The blog was used for analysing other media products, planning production meetings and also documented our progress and changes to the plans we originally made. We also used the blogs to receive peer feedback; this was particularly helpful for taking our first draft to a higher quality for the final edition. Final Cut was the editing programme we used to put together the music video by using several techniques for example, by using a split screen to help make the clips dynamic and punchy. In addition to this the overlapping footage we used to duplicate the mime character played with the conventions of a performance based video. We also used Photoshop to compose the ancillary texts and to create the TV image of the mime’s head. The fonts used were downloaded from the internet using the website www.dafont.com as the fonts we found on a typical word application were not what we wanted and the effect of the downloaded font was much better for the image of the band. Digital photography was also used to document the filming progress, photographs of which we entered onto the blog and also for the photo shoot that took place on set for the ancillary texts. We also used a camera phone to get images quickly and conveniently to other members of the group, something we found particularly useful whilst planning the video shoot. Final Cut was also used to bring the entire video together as we brought together the audio and video using this programme to create our final product and achieved from this an authentic and good standard of video.
My media products developed the conventional Indie-Rock ideas behind real media products. For example, Indie-Rock videos are usually performance based to emphasise the importance of a ‘real musician’ in today’s music industry that is continuously undermined by reality television stars. However, our performance was not particularly conventional as we created a band by duplicating the mime character which featured in our video as a link to our narrative which gave the video more depth and interest for the viewer. We made the opening sequence eye catching by using a split screen to introduce the instruments of the song. The singer of the band was focused on through her appearance being bright, colourful and individual which made a strong contrast to the black and white of the mime’s costume. We decided to duplicate the mime character to add to the surrealism of the narrative as it linked to the lyrics “and this ain’t real like the girls on TV”. This factor reflects the lyrics as instead of using a typically dressed boy and making a fairytale romance as found on TV we used the confusing motif of a mime to highlight the singer’s confusion and anxiety. This type of scenario is that of which many listeners are able to relate to which the production group thought was ideal because music is commonly used to influence and inspire its listeners creatively.
Another reason for including a narrative within the video in order to create the image of our band as unique, abstract and avant garde. This is due to the fact that the image of musicians does remain as an important factor as it can be used to market the band and also influences the fans with several artists of today also being known for their personal and often controversial style such as Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. Whilst researching we found several bands such as The Gossip and Paramore influential with the image and style that the videos portrayed. This is because Paramore also feature a woman lead singer making the focus of several of their videos on her and also the band used conventions of live performances and then developed them to create an edgy and unique style. The image of the Gossip was also influential, particularly in the video for ‘Heavy Cross’. The iconic clothes and make up of Beth Ditto made the song powerful and it also featured elements of a live performance. The ideals of the two bands were similar to that of what the group aspired to create.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The two products were designed to compliment each other well and this aim has been achieved. From planning well in advance the group was able to have a photo shoot on set of the music video, this helped with timing later on in the project as it gave us a longer opportunity to edit the images. It also meant the photographs used were of higher quality and the image that was created of the band made the ancillary texts bold, edgy and vibrant. The car, which features in the music video, was also used in the ancillary texts as an iconic and original prop in order to create a link between all of the products for the audience. The digi-pak used similar images to that of the magazine advert which meant that audiences could easily find the album recognisable from seeing the advert. We put an image of a television on the male band member, rather than the female, as a link to the music video of it not being a fairytale romance as seen on television and that the obscure mime character was the lead singer’s own version of that in reality. We also included an ‘out now’ banner on the advert with the HMV symbol so that audiences would be encouraged to go and find the album within those stores.
Usually in the industry, the release of a new album results with a tour to promote it. Because of this, we added tour dates to our magazine advert in hope of creating the image of a realistic and modern Indie-rock band. The competition which features within the digi-pak is given authenticity from the sponsorship of the popular social networking website, Myspace. The website is regularly used by many music fans as well as artists making it an ideal feature for the band to be involved in. Also, the support shown to unsigned bands is designed to create popularity, publicity and success for the band within the industry. In addition to featuring Myspace, we also used references to NME music magazine which we knew to be popular with our target audiences as it is popularly read by Indie-Rock fans and the magazine is renowned for their annual award shows - of which Apollo Station had been awarded best newcomer and four stars for the album – with these factors making the magazine ideal. The font we chose reflected the image of the band as edgy and messy and we found it to be a good symbol of the band which would be recognisable in the industry.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Overall, we received very positive feedback for example “the overall design lets me know exactly what kind of band we’ve got here” (ex-art editor of Future Music Magazine). This was what we wanted to achieve: the image of a band, rather than just a video, that would please the eye of the public and the industry. The feedback we received on the rough cut edition of our video highlighted that our video did not have enough cuts throughout making the pace a lot slower than it needed to be to create an authentic video. For our final cut we made a strong effort to correct this and made the video quicker and also added in a new sequence throughout the instrumental section which we cut to fit the beat – this had a lot of positive feedback for the final cut. Another issue that we had with the rough cut was the split screen looking too obvious due to change in light quality in between takes. For the final cut we corrected the colours to the best of our ability and made the effect much more subtle. Also, for our final cut we included more close-ups of the singer to add more focus onto her as requested from the feedback on our rough cut. Other feedback we received led to rethinking the layout of the magazine advert and also how we would use the features within the ancillary texts such as NME and Myspace to effective but realistic use. For example, we made the text on the NME award headline smaller to put more focus on the band name.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Predominantly, the Internet was our main source for researching the conventional music videos that fitted our genre. This meant that YouTube was particularly useful in addition to the production team’s online blog. The blog was used for analysing other media products, planning production meetings and also documented our progress and changes to the plans we originally made. We also used the blogs to receive peer feedback; this was particularly helpful for taking our first draft to a higher quality for the final edition. Final Cut was the editing programme we used to put together the music video by using several techniques for example, by using a split screen to help make the clips dynamic and punchy. In addition to this the overlapping footage we used to duplicate the mime character played with the conventions of a performance based video. We also used Photoshop to compose the ancillary texts and to create the TV image of the mime’s head. The fonts used were downloaded from the internet using the website www.dafont.com as the fonts we found on a typical word application were not what we wanted and the effect of the downloaded font was much better for the image of the band. Digital photography was also used to document the filming progress, photographs of which we entered onto the blog and also for the photo shoot that took place on set for the ancillary texts. We also used a camera phone to get images quickly and conveniently to other members of the group, something we found particularly useful whilst planning the video shoot. Final Cut was also used to bring the entire video together as we brought together the audio and video using this programme to create our final product and achieved from this an authentic and good standard of video.
Thursday 3 December 2009
Commentary
To allow all of our the members of our group to feature in the DVD commentary, we may have to use a youtube clip of Tom because he is ill but we still want him to take part. this will also add other elements to our commentary.
Idea's for DVD commentary
For the evaluation of our final products, a DVD commentary is required. Our ideas for this were inspired by the weather forcast on TV:
We wanted to use a green screen like the weather men/women, allowing us to actively show our points within the commentary visually. however due to time restraints this will not be possible. instead we are going to talk into the camera with still images cut in and clips from the video also being shown.
As using a green screen to show pictures will not be possible. we have had the idea of using the magic tool on final-cut which will allow us to put a back ground of our choice behind the clips.
We wanted to use a green screen like the weather men/women, allowing us to actively show our points within the commentary visually. however due to time restraints this will not be possible. instead we are going to talk into the camera with still images cut in and clips from the video also being shown.
As using a green screen to show pictures will not be possible. we have had the idea of using the magic tool on final-cut which will allow us to put a back ground of our choice behind the clips.