Question 4 what you learned from your audience feedback

The one aspect that most of the audience recognised was that i was missing a bag in one scene as the original bag broke after the first scene so it couldnt be in use anymore. we thought that it would not be very noticable but it clearly was. the audience overall really liked our video and supported us.

2. How effective is the combination of your product (video) and anciliary texts (digipak and advertisement)

My original idea for my digipak was a very dull and moody appearance as i thought this would add a very edgy and effective mood to it as opposed to our video which is very bright. In the end i decided that too much grey was not he best idea. So when it camedown to producing the piece on photoshop i used the same front cover picture but just the colour version of it. The preliminary task gave m a vey good idea on how i wanted my digpak and advert to look like.

I made sure that the artists name was added to the ront cover as this is a very important factor, you can regonise the name 'Y Shocker' as it also appears in the video. We had the artists name appear right at the start of the video so it will be more likey to remember it and this way the artist is also promoted even if some people dont buy his album. The artist has been used in three of the products so it is very easily recognised by the audience. the images and effects used on my digipak and advertisement compliment my video very well. what i like mostly liked about my front cover was the picture that was used. It made the cover standout and the fact that the artist looks partically crazy, says a lot about the artist. i chose to have the front cover very simple as the the image created enough effected but i also chose to add the artist name and a 'parental advisory'  label for a rougher look and to compliment the genre . Even when i was adding text to the inside panels for the 'thank you' note i had to make sure it sounded how the artist would  say it. The influence for my digipak came by looking at a variety of artists and putting ideas together. Solja boys album slightly helped me with the back cover such as the small prints at the bottom. i was also got inspired by 50cents album where he also has his hands o his head, the album also portrayed dull colours.

I believe my digipak and advert sit myaudience a lot which varies from 15 and above. i beilieve mainly rap and grime fans would enjoy this album also mainly boyswhich is why i specifically madethe colours dull as opposed to something like pink. in terms of advertisment i chose to use the same picture as i loved it, plus the image itself is veryattention grabbing so it was the best for promoting.


Question 3 How did youse media technologies in construrctuion and reasearch.
We reasearched students past work throguh vimeo and fond out the do's and donts. Watching these videos really embraced our ideas and made us think deeply abot how we were going to film every scene, and edit them. The lip sync tutorials tutorials gave us an insight as to how to get the video fottage and sing together to look as though we were singing it. this was very useful as we needed to get the syncing correct or the video would not look realistic. we were also taugt how to use camera effects such as using light during nighttim scenes. to film the footage we needed state of the art video camera which produced us with very good footage and gave a proffesional add to it. using the cameras was fairly simple and wegot the hang of it very quick. We had to make sure thatwe used the memry cards correctly because otherwise our work would of been lost. We used blogger in order to outline our ideas and plan our work.

Evaluation

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenged forms and conventions of real media products?

Throughout the whole process from planning to constructing our music video, my main ideas and inspirations developed from four different music videos (two of which are British singles). These useful products of media influenced me to duplicate specific shots which were either suitable for our concept/genre or be influenced by a certain style from the mise-en-scene. 

For example, our concept came from the video of famous British Pop band Sugababes - About you Now, which used the simple storyline of a male and a female on a journey to a meeting point. However, we had decided to twist the concept where there was a narrative situation behind the action which the audience understand through the lyrics and camerawork.

Due to Embedding disabled by request, I have posted the link via YouTube ; Sugababes - About you Now http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sugababes+-+about+you+now+&aq=f

Another visual aspect that caught our eyes was certain location areas which they had chosen which were famous attraction sites in London e.g. near The Gerkin. Therefore we had chosen various areas on a Bus Tour map to shoot in our video which tells the audience that '...even with typical/popular surroundings, a British music video can still look professional.'

In terms of mise-en-scene, the British pop video uses props or specific street surroundings such as construction cones, stairs and a car for stunts. We also wanted to think outside the box so we created a simple stunt to descend the staircases which was a slide down the banister and a hop of the stairs. For health and safety reasons, we did not want to take chances and approach an impossible stunt. For these ideas, match cut edits, worms eye shot and long to close up shots were necessary and imaginative. Even though you hardly see match cut edits used in a music video, it worked effectively throughout our productive work likewise with our inspirational music video.

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Eminem - Love the Way you Lie

For our romance scene, famous American rapper Eminem's - Love the way you Lie video came to our head as there is a strong passion between both actors within the first 20 seconds of this video. One of my favourite shots was the Bird's eye shot of the couple lying in bed together. It was an unusual shot that shows that followed onto a close-up shot which shows the audience the love or even the sexual attraction between them. Likewise, we decided to attempt this shot simply by standing above on a bed. Fortunately, it was effective and suited the functions of a professional British Music Video.

For our male artist 'Y.Shocker,' we were keen on the idea of a skyline behind him which is where the recent British music video Tinie Tempah - Written in the Stars where the artist himself stands on the roof of a building. We had found it hard to find a building that had a suitable roof but once again for health and safety reasons, climbing onto an actual unknown building was not a chance we wanted to take. So, we filmed our artist's section on a bridge infront of buildings as we had to compromise with little time.

One thing that I did like was the worm's eye shots under the audience and the sky was the surroundings. Young rappers have the idea of 'the sky is the limit' which follows this statement fully. This shot also allowed our male artist to make eye connection with the audience and this lighting gave visual glow to his appearance which I had admired.

For particular lighting, I felt that Justin Timberlake - I'm lovin it video used a deep dark glow of blue to the video which made it look more urban. The one thing I did particularly admire was the whole idea that everyone in the surroundings acted normal as though it was an ordinary day where people are shopping. I had wanted my video to look like that!

Due to embedded disabled by request : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg7a5e4_pa4&ob=av2em

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Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak and advertisement?

I think that my successful music video links to my successfull ancillary texts as they both look professional and stand out to he audience. There is an obvious link between the Digipak and the Advertisement as they both use the same photo of the artist which is basically to promote the album. I wanted to make this photo a signature pose that the artists does which is recognizable amongst the audience. My advertisement suits the mainstream type of music of today where I can see the advertisement in a local magazine such as 'Now' or 'Look' where for example there are page spreads advertising the lastest album from artists such as Taio Cruz and Tinie Tempah. There is also a link between the companies published which is EMI Records and Inkerupt Records. Similarly, the font used in the advertisement stating "Lure of my Memories" is the same font used in the tracks list of the actual album. This is what makes them combined.

Unfortunately there is no link between the album and the music video as what I had produced was the album made up of 11 tracks so therefore I did not need to use a screen shot of my male artist in the video. If I had produced a single to promote the single 'Never be you Woman' then I would have used a screen shot to show the audience that the music video is part of it's execution to the single CD. However, the photos used in the actual digipak are noticable where an audiene will recognize this artist in future videos or advertisements.

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Question 3: How did you use the media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

The equipment which were given for our project were state of the art video cameras along with top-lights (which enabled us to shoot at twilight without affective the lighting), digital cameras (which we used for our research of locations and moodboards) and SD memory cards which allowed us to save our work and edit using Final cut pro. Even though these resources were for our production, these pieces of equipment were a joy to use as you would discover new techniques (such as a specific button on the handheld camera that would enable sharp focused footage) that could make our music video even more effective.

 

 

During our process of planning and research, a number of websites were used such as YouTube.com , Google.com , Vimeo.com , Facebook.com and Blogger.com. These particular sites helped us to gain ideas and think about the type of audience we wanted to attract.

With the most famous search engines 'Google,' this allowed us to search for the visual appearances of Bridges in London which we had planned to use for our meeting point. Maps on google allowed us to find easy and accesible routes to a specific location which was also part of our planning task. 

Especially for our animatic storyboard, Google images helped us to visually draw some of the shots we wanted to use in our project. For example. for our romance scene, we needed a photo of a woman whispering in her love's ear of which we found the template of on Google for a rough idea. Below you will see how Google images had been interpreted through our drawings to mock up our storyboard.

I personally think Vimeo helped me to imagine and decide how I wanted our music video to look. Watching the previous student's work on this website allowed me to notice not only disadvantages of specific techniques used (such as Green Screen and choices of songs) but even advantages where they have chosen a good location or used the right mise-en-scene to suit the genre.

Looking at our own music video one month after it's execution, I can observe the little mistakes I had made or errors in the editing but I do not regret them (nobody's work is perfect). Although our video has not recieved any views, likes or comments, I think it is a strong piece of work that suits the mainstream music of today.

The No.1 website for viewing videos helped us analyze shots that we wanted to duplicate. Our inspirations came from music videos which we had viewed several times on YouTube and this even allowed us to embed these videos onto our blogs for research and planning. I would also say that thanks to this website, I could take screen shots of particular ideas once again to post onto this blog.

When we did decide on 3 final song choices as a team, we observed the original music video many times to gather a bubble of ideas where it would not duplicate the original idea. I remember myself watching the music video of our song choice Wiley - Never be your Woman (which I had never seen before) and my first viewing I watched all the action carefully whereas on my second viewing, I closed my ideas and interpreted my own version of camerawork and edits in my head.

All my execution of research were published onto Blogger where I could express my opinions and ideas that I wanted to achieve. In some cases, it did help me to come to a decision of song choice and to view all of my ideas as a whole on a screen and view how my work would look from the audience's point of view.

I used Blogger to upload all my work where my teachers could comment and  observe my strengths, weaknesses and my progress through my project. This was also an oppurtunity to view other people's work for rough ideas and for comparison.  

Since we did not arrange a meeting to take photos of our male artist's which would be used for our Digipak and ancillary products, Facebook was a big help to us as we individually had chosen which photos were effective from his profle pictures Album. As you could see, there was one photo which was popular amongst the group (as seen below). This access to our male artist's photos gave us a wide choice of different styles of photos and also experiment on how they would look on a dikipak using a particular programme.

To create my advertisement, I had mainly used Photoshop which is a programme specialised in Graphics and media products. Looking at the large photo of our artist above and the one below, you can see there is a difference between the lighting used. However, this photo was a duplicate of my front panel from my CD Digipak. I also used a combination of 3 different fonts to create my advertisement which I had also adjusted into different sizes.

Moreover, for the construction of my Digipak, using Photoshop again was easier as I have previously designed my own CD covers using a similar graphic design programme called Photoimpact. Experimenting with different tools allowed me to change the colour correction of a particular picutre using a tool that adjusts the colour variation to any of my choice e.g. less saturation makes the photo less bold. This programme also allowed me to move my objects freely into any place on the screen and experiment with over 20 different tools that could dramatically change either the focus or colour saturation of my digipak.

To edit my music video, Final Cut Pro was an excellent programme that allowed me to place all my clips into a box and even rename which I then would cut and transfer onto the timeline. Even the razor tool was a great way to cut this footage at a speciic second that you wanted. With this easy layout, it was a great way to put together my video and edit in a good style and on beat to the sound of the music.

I did experiment with particular effects such as Green Screen where we tried to have our female actress standing in the middle of the road and the cars around her ascending 100x faster than the footage. With this idea we had to film our actress in front of a large green sheet of card (remembering that she must wear inary colours to the sheet) and transfered this footage onto Final Cut Pro. Unfourtunately we did trial and error to complete this idea but we ddi not like the green glow line around our actress' figure which made it unprofessional. In order to overcome this idea, we had to come up with a different way we could attempt this strategy.

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Question 4: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 NOTE: I had many faults with uploading my voice over and interviews from the audience feedback so I typed out a translation of what was said:

I had interviewed 2 fellow media students who viewed my music video as the Green Screening and this is what they had to say;

Interviewer: 'So what did you like about our music video?'
Catherine: ' Well I liked the song choice, it was very good which probrably made the editing on beat easier for you. It was really classy aswell because as a female singer you stood there and sang powerful doing what girls do [giggles]. And improvements, I can't think of one off the top of my head but I think the video was great ! [laughs]

Interviewer: ' Is there anything you liked about the video?'

Estephanie: 'I think the way you portrayed the artist was well, the song choice and lip-syncing was really good too.

Interviewer: ' Do you think there was any downfalls ?'

Estephanie: ' Mmmm probrably there should of been more action especially for the song words.'

So what have I learnt from this audience feedback?

' I've learnt quite alot I'd say but not especially a bit chunk from the audience but all the feedback I'm guessing was posistive, stuff like "it was a great video, it looked really real and they could see it on MTV Hits" and things like that. They said they loved the concept of it. I got a lot of posistive feedback especially after the cinema screening which I did not record. Ermmm I wouldn't say I've learnt much from it but it's a thing where either the audience love it or they hate it, it's a simple thing! Well I also learnt that if you produce the good work, you get the good feedback and I produced good work and got back good feedback. I haven't had much negative feedback and I could see all the downfalls of the vieo while I watched it because I edited it. But I wouldn't say there was much wrong with it.' 

In summary, what have you learnt from the whole journey ?

'Okay so what have I learnt from this whole process? What can I say it's been a journey, I've enjoyed it, I've hated it, so many mixed emotions and so many ups and downs. It's been an adventure. Well wat I would say that from the beginning, it was a good group but there was always that one person who was lazy or did not turn up to meetings or even didn't turn up to shootings. And that would always degrade the group and increase the amount of work we had to do hence why in my blogs alot of our stuff and shootings were very late and a last minute thing. What I must say is that, when you're in a group of people, you need to learn to work together.
With my group, we were all friends, we weren't incredibly close btu we would only meet in during lessons when we actually needed to meet up out of lessons. I felt I was the only person who would have to call them up and say; "We need to meet at this place, we need to discuss and plan." No one really pulled their weight as much as me because I was the most motivated and this my grade where I didn't have time to mess about. A good thing about the group was that everyone did pitch in their own ideas
. Little ideas where I did put my trust in them and didn't feel I had to do it all by myself which I did feel like in the beginning and it all paid off. This had helped me realise that not only in school you're gonna find this, in any workplace you will have to work together as a team. I also learnt what it takes to make a music video, everything you need to do and even the actual stress you go through and after all this I actually WANT to make more videos. It had been fun and a great experience ! '

Question 1 in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media?

Me and my group took a long time to decide which song and artist we wanted to base our music video on, in the end we decided to do Wiley Never be your woman. we knew that producing a grime song would be quite a difficult task as we had seen many previous videos of students that had produced this sort of work. We decided to slightly change the conventions of the genre of the music video. We still included a rapper but the setting was based around central London as opposed to rough looking areas which would  be a typical grime image. Our concept was based on a relationship involving a cheating man going on a journey to meet his faithful girlfriend, who has no idea about what the goings on are. We filmed in many locations such as Piccadilly Circus, London Eye, Vauxhall Bridge. The process of making the video was a very long process as we had difficulties finding the rapper which we found in the end. We thought about each scene and where and how we were going to produce them. Every scene was thought about and we tried very hard not to copy the original aspects of the video of the song we were using. For example the video included a very basic area with many estates. We chose to do the opposite to this and base it in central London. The rapper in the original video only appears for a very short moment only. We decided to include the rapper in quite a few scenes. The singer only appeared what it seems to be on a balcony very early in the morning but we decided to base our lead singer in many different locations such as on a bridge at sundown, near a lake on a very bright day.

We decided to break every convention of the genre to give it an edge and to stand out from different grime video's. We did not chose to focus on one character we had four characters included, which was a vocalist, a rapper and the two main characters the male and female which are seperate from all of them. Although the storyline is based on the male and female the rapper and singer also have their own main roles. We chose to do our scene mainly outside as we thought this would look better as opposed to having a rapper preforming on stage which would be very cliche.

Eminem Featuring Rihanna - Love the way you lie

This particular song fitted our genre of music as it was a rap song song, but the difference is that they he is an American artist. They're concept is fairly similar to ours which includes two couples on bad terms with each other. The part of the video that i really liked was the fire, but unfortunetly we could not use it in ours for health and safety reasons. There is a wide varirty of shots and angles used effectively. The setting of the song is very basic but due to the many camera angles and effects it has made to seem better. I was very inspired by the part when the couple are lying on the bed and i had to fit it in our video somehow. In the end we did and it worked perfectly. It was a difficult shot to perform as it was a birds eye shot.

Sugababes - About you now

The entire concept for our video came from this one. I have always loved this video but i wanted to base it on a different song. Never be your woman was perfect for it as it included a relationship with an unfaithful man meeting his girlfriend. As we had to include a rapper in the video a lot of change had to be done in order for everything to fit in together. The main aspect that attracted us most to this video was the fast editing and camera movements. There where high angle ho, low angle shots,establishing shots and so much more. As a group we believed that these aspects turned a video from looking simple into a well produced piece. The images below show the similar endings that we use, both girl and boy being on the same side in both images. We thought to end it like this as it ends with a clif hanger.

Tinie Tempah - Written in the stars

We included this video because like ours it contained many characters and locations. It used many establishing which we were a fan of as many are used in ours. They both involved a rapper and a singer whih told the story of the video.

These shots are very similar to eachother as they both portray the sky with a city outline in the background. Tinie Tempah's video starts of withthe camera panning around him as does ours.

The digipak that i have produced followed the convention of gime genre as oppose to our video which breaks all the conventions. I found creating an image for a grime related digipak pretty simple as i am very aware of grime music. The entire group found this fairly simple to create as we all have agod understanding of the genre. I kept the colour schemes for my digipak and advertisment fairly simple which mainly consisted of the colours grey, black and white. We chose these colours as we thought they are the best colours to use for this sort of music. I wanted to keep the album looking simple but effective and i got some great responses from my class.

Evaluation

1) The process of producing a music video, digipak and advertisement was a long an strenuous task, we broke down all elements of each media product and made it similar to successful professional counterparts. Firstly we needed some inspiration from real music videos that we could emulate and be able to learn from them in order to come up with a decent music video.

Our inspirations were:

Eminem feat. Rihanna - Love The Way You Lie

Tinie Tempah feat. Eric Turner - Written In The Stars

Sugababes - About You Now

Kanye West - Runaway (Full-length Film)

All videos contributed and had parallel parts in our own video, this gave our video a look that followed the conventions of music videos that you see on music channels rather than a viral video found on YouTube.

Our main inspiration came from the video to Sugababes - About You Now, we had decided that our video was going to have two artists and a storyline. After some brainstorming we came up with our final, main concept for the video, this was to have a couple meeting each other on a London bridge. The video would include a lot of journey time as we wanted to capture the couple's journey towards each other, we liked this idea as it would make the video interesting and capture London and city life. When we found the Sugababes video the concept was almost identical, the video had a couple meeting up and we new we needed to take various ideas from the video in order for us to make a video that conveys its storyline instead of having a video where it looks like two people are simply walking. We found that many of the shots were hand held, this visual style was great as it gave the video an in moment feel, almost live feel to it which we were all for to be used in our project. Another aspect gained from the video was many of the camera angles, camerawork and also we gathered that the shots in our editing would be fast paced to make it exciting.

We used a wide range of camera shots to make the video entertaining.

Here the female walkes pased the camera on a closeup, both the shot and footage was unique. 

The final scene is similar our though a close up. We then used a rising shot unlike in the Sugababes video.

To begin our video we needed to set the storyline and create a typical image for a cheating male, we needed to do this in order for the song to somehow relate to what was in the lyrics in the song. The main phrase in the song by Wiley featuring Emile Sande is the title of the song 'Never be your Woman'. The lyrics clearly send the message of a woman saying she isn't the right girl for this guy or a guy in general. The story line therefore fits lyrically and visually. The video begins with the male character waking up next to a woman, after the video ends we can clearly realise that he's having an affair or even affairs with other women as he is not satisfied by one woman alone. The video we related this beginning scene to was Eminem feat. Rihanna - Love The Way You Lie, the video was not entirely similar but allowed us to learn how to represent a man cheating with a woman with camera angles and a display of micro features.

This birds eye shot was the most similar in both videos. 

When creating the video we knew that the artists singing in the video needed to have exciting scenery around them, we needed a location that would look good and go with the city theme that we see so commonly in Grime and Rap videos. After doing some research on videos, the most exciting scenery we found an artist in was in the Video to Tinie Tempah's Written In The Stars. The scenery around Tinie Tempah is eye catching, modern looking and hip hop cool looking, but most importantly it ties in with the city theme. In the image below you can see how this simple research gave us a platform to make our video look more exciting, it also gives the video a look that differs from other genres and looks professional.

There were many other videos that inspired us, as I did the camera work one shot that i found was vital we used was when the camera man slightly moves the camera away from what is on screen therefore leaving a vacant feeling on the viewer. I first came across this while watching the video to 'Runaway' by Kanye West, this Gif. file show a quick representation of the camera shot that i have explained. 

Our video follows many of the conventions in grime music videos, we decided that we did't want to make any brash decisions and brake conventions of our genre seeing as we were mostly following the conventions in order to create a professional looking video. We did brake a convention storyline wise though, the main protagonist in our story is played by a character instead of the actual artist. We broke this convention in the video and did the same with the female artist as-well. I think we successfully broke the conventions of basic story line linking to the artist by actually placeing them in the storyline sequence because the audience was able to understand that the artists were being represeted by the characters.

Question 2

The video and the ancillary products clearly reltae, the genre features where kept the same on both the ancillary products and the video.

The night time theme is visible in both the ancilliary products and the video. The digipak and advert both link as the image used in the album cover has been used on the advert aswell. I didn't simply place the album on the advert but re arranged the images and logos so that you could see some internet based connections showing it was an advert. Our video will definitely attract people that like this genre of music, it follows conventions from the grime genre, it is fast pasted and partly filmed at night. The ancillary products will also appeal to our genre along with the advert because of the black and white theme. The image of the artist is clearly visible to the audience and this creates excitement to people that listen to grime.

Question 3

To record our video we used many new types of equipment. The camera was prime for capturing footage, the digital camera was really high quality, the stand was helpful and the memory cards were easy to use and of high memory.

To edit we used new up to date programs like final cut pro, although re adjusting ourselves to these programmes they were exceptionally helpful.

We tried to use the green screen and begun taking some shots in the green room but then decided that we would rather go to the locations and take the shots seeing as green room shots take a lot of editing to make it realistic.

We used very good software, i used photoshop elements 4.0 and made a advert and digipaks with ease. The editing of photos was very easy although it took some time to get used to. 

Another media technology was the one i'm using right now, internet blogging in blogger. I used blogger like a diary to document what resulted in being an exciting and fun project as a whole.


Question 4

We learnt a lot from reviews, i learnt that the concept of the video was actually grasped by the audience. We also did a quick survey from our class and one little error where our female artist had a handbag on her left hand then switching to her right hand but only the teacher realised luckily. I interview two people that actually like grime music and their reception was good, they were our main target and thankfully we came though. The feedback makes me look back at the project and realise that we could maybe have spent even more time on taking shots. The audience in the cinema reacted very well, my friends were very supportive of the video which was good to hear but what i enjoyed the most was the louder than normal clapping after our video was screened on screen on the green cinema. I have learnt that perhaps with time i could brake more conventions of a genre in order for it to be almost revolutionary in the media and set a new tone. Here are two recorded reactions to our video.

One of the negative reactions to our video was that we could have used more locations, we did emphasise on getting a lot of locations but still according to the view more could be used. i have learnt a lot during this blogging, recording, designing year and now how the viewer is our prime concern. Finally  this project has been tough but fun.