Wednesday 30 November 2011

Georgina's evaluation

1. Our music video uses many conventions of real media products as we followed the typical boy band sterotype. For example the costume was conventional- hooded tops and jeans.
The camera shots were all typical of a pop music video: there were close ups to show the emotions in the singers faces, and long shots to show the outfits and the locations. A way in which it challenged the conventions is that there are only 2 costume changes and 2 location changes. Typically boy band music videos have several different costumes. Our music video also challenges in the way that it only features the members of the boy band, rather than also having a story line with actors like many music videos of the same genre.

2. Our music video and ancillary tasks work well together as a package because they promote not only the song strange, but also JLS as a band. They also back each other up in continuity so that there is a running theme throughout all of hour products. If a member of our target audience sees one of our products, and then another, they will recognise it as being part of JLS.
The magazine advert has a picture which is a still taken from the music video, and the cover for the digipack contains similar images, and also the same font is consistent throughout,  this helps our music video and ancillary tasks work together as a promotional package.
The tasks all contain a good house-style. They work well to create a particular image for JLS, which was aimed for typical boy band of the pop genre. This image will reach out and attract our target audience, of young people, mainly girls, which is very important in the music industry. With the combination of all this, it will be extremely useful for sales of the music video, the digipack, and JLS as a whole.

3. We learned a lot from audience feedback and it was very helpful. Costume and location changes were suggested and we incorporated them into our final product. The audience feedback was from an audience the were the right age range for most of our target audience, and the right age of music video viewers, so it was important and help to get feedback from them because we then knew what they wanted out of our product, and we were then able to make alterations from their advice. For example it was audience suggestion that we cut out the actors scenes that we had originally filmed, as they didn't fit in very well with out video, and the audience wanted the band members to have more screen time.
There was also positive feedback from the audience with things they wanted us to keep in and that they enjoyed. the performance from the band members was well appreciated, the shot variety and the transitions  were also commented on as being effective. The lip-syncing was also well appreciated by the audience.
Having the audience feedback that we did, it showed how important it was to receive audience input. Without this, we may have missed out important things from the final video that our viewers wanted to see, or vise-versa by putting in things the audience would not have been interested in.
Some negative feedback was that the inside locations could have been better and more 'tidy', and that more of a variety of locations would have been more typical of a pope music video.

4. New media technologies were used in the whole process and each stage of making out music video. In the research, we used previous music videos from the same genre, and the internet, to analyse and find out what sort of things we wanted and needed to put into our own product. This was also part of the planning. For the actual filming of the video, we used one video camera. In the editing stages we used more technologies, we used final cut on the macs to do the editing of the video. On this were all the special effects that we needed for our video, such as the transitions and colour corrector. We used photoshop to create the magazine advert and the cover of the digipack. Also for the digipack we used a digital images to get the images for the whole cover. Other pictures of the cover were still taken from the final music video as these worked efficiently with creating continuity for all our products. On photoshop we were also able to match the colour schemes and font for all out products so that there were no continuity errors.

Tuesday 29 November 2011

Sam's Evaluation

Q1)

For our meida products we decided to choose a stereotypical view of a boyband. The song we decided to use was "Strange" by JLS. So our group thought it would be a good idea to use some of the things that are done by JLS e.g. costume, cheesy acting, air grabs etc. The video contained a typical boyband image in the way we filmed our video. For instance we showed a lot of close-ups portraying emotion from the singers, which is something you are likely to see in a real media products. This all links in with Goodwin's points and how the lyrics and visuals, music and visuals are typical of our genre, cheesy boyband pop video. The frequent use of close-ups show off each individual artist to show the importance and emotion of the band. Furthermore there is a constant notion of looking at the camera, again to show emotion and to capture the feelings of the singers. It is also done to make it look as though they are actually singing to someone in particular. Our video, advert, and DVD cover all conform to the stereptype by including typical balck and white colour. This can display the mood and give off a good effect.

Q2)

Our media products all work well as a promotional package for a number of reasons. Firstly they all have similar effects e.g. black and white, and the cover and magazine both contain either camera shots from the music video or a still camera shot taken in a location from the video, while wearing the same costumes that are seen in the video. This shows good continuity. It creates the image of a typical boyband in the way we use black and white and longing, emotive looks into space, which is stereotypicallywhat you would in a boyband is stereotypically what you would in a boyband video, DVD cover, and magazine advert. Our products are successfulat attracting the target audeince, which is most likely going to teenage girls or fans of JLS. The reasons it is successful is because it shows off the image of the boyband and constantly shows the artists, which is what the audience want to see. Things such as featuring a gallery on our DVD means that the audience can look at pictures of the band, together and individually.

Q3)

We learnt a lot from the feedback we were given. Firstly from our initial pitch we realised that in order to make our music video a success, we had to go all out and make it as cheest as possible. By doing this we hoped that instead of the video looking embaressing, it would look cheesy, but in a good way, as though it was actually something you would see in real life. From our rough cut we learnt that we would have to improve our video by doing a number of things. Firstly our peers said that we needed to include different locations in our video. With this in mind we decided to film outside, wearing different costumes to make our video look better and more professional. Secondly we were told to use more effects on final cut. So after hearing this we decided to inlude more cross-dissolves, fade in/outs, and include the use of split-screens. We had a lot of compliments for our final cut. For instance many said that we showed good lip-synching, acting and emotive singing. They also said it was good how we looked like a proper boyband, and how we used effects such as black and white, split-screens etc. to make our video successful.

Q4) The use of the new technology helped us massively in making our music video a success. Firstly the HD cameras, and still shot cameras helped us capture fantastic shots with great quality. They aslo helped us in making the lighting look effective in certain shots. Final cut was essential in making our music video look professional and successful. We included a large amount of editing techniques to amke it look better e.g. black and white, fades, cross-dissolves, split-screens etc. Although it took a lot of time to find out how to do some things, in the end, I believe our product looked very professional. The use of photoshop is something our group found harder to do to begin with. However once we knew what we were doing, it became a lot easier. We managed to include good effects such as gradient going from colour to black and white for our DVD cover, as well as making our advert look effective and professionally made.

Monday 28 November 2011

Holly's Evaluation

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

Our media product uses, develops and challenges different forms and conventions of real media products in a variety of different ways.  Before we started planning the media product, we had to do some research, because our genre was R&B/Pop, and was a typical boyband song, we looked at a variety of different artists such as JLS (themselves) and how they present themselves, Take That and Westlife.  We looked at the type of clothing they wear, we looked at some of their videos, in which we looked at the micro and macro elements, and we thought about how they had encorporated Goodwin's Points.  Our song choice was that of a typcical boyband song, in which we tried to make the music video and ancillary tasks look as professional as possible, in a way that would appeal to our audience (young teenage girls, maybe older women).  Throughout the music video we have tried to encorporate Goodwin's Points, which are; links between lyrics and music, links between lyrics and visuals, genre characteristics, intertextual reference, notions of looking, performance, narrative and concept based and finally demands from the record label.  I think that we have attempted for our media product to encorporate at least most of the points.  However, I think that some of Goodwins Points could have been done to a better standard, for example genre characteristics, we have tried to make the music video look cheesy and typical and be sterotypical, and I think that the locations and shot types work well, however I do think that the boys could have looked more like a boyband so they could have each had their own colour or worn matching t-shirts.  I also think that our media product uses Goodwin's Point of performance, narrative and concept based well, because our music video is performed, even though we don't really have a narrative, the performance makes up for it and we found that alot of boyband videos don't have a particular narrative to them.

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

The combination of our main product and ancillary texts work well as a promotional package,they do his by encorporating many of the same features, such as the same font on both ancillary texts, this shows that the media product has good Housestyle and when people see one of the ancillary tasks, they will automatically think of our music video and JLS as a boyband.  The image that we have tried to encorporate is that they are a sterotypical boyband, with the longing looks on their faces and them looking into the distance.  We have tried to make all 3 look like a promotional package by using images from our music video and we have used a picture for our magazine advert (the 3 boys walking away) from the music video.  When we wre doing our digi-pak it took us a while to find a suitable picture that fitted the shape of the dvd cover, therefore after trying out different images from the video we took in some advice from Holly and Nick and took a picture of the band in the forest setting (remembering to have continuity - wearing same clothes) - this worked much better, and the image that I feel we have created from our 3 products is that they are a typical boyband.

3) What have you learnt from your audience feeback?

Our feedback from our initial pitch wasn't as good as we had planned, mainly because our group found it hard to come up with suitable, sensible ideas.  We decided we either did a really 'cheesy pop boyband video' or a 'spoof video', I wasn't keen on the idea of a 'spoof video', but the group agreed and we decided to go with the typical 'cheesy' boyband video.  I think that this idea worked well.  When we presented our initial pitch to the class, they wanted to know if we had any intertextual references, where our locations would be and how we were going to make it conventional.  Our feedback from our rogh cut was mainly good, and people enjoyed the video, however, we hadn't quite finished the video and we didn't have enough footage, we were told that we should film some more, and in a different location, to film some more of the actors part (which we ended up taking out as this proved to be a difficult subject as the actor and actress were never free when we were and we ended up not having enough time to shoot out of lesson), so we had to delete this and fill it with some other footage.  We were also told that we should put in some split screens and add filters and colour effects.  I'm pleased that we went and shot in different locations as this gave us more footage and shot types.  Our feedback from our final cut was very pleasing, it showed that our hard work had paid off because everyone seemed to enjoy it, they especially thought that our lip syncing was very good and thought that we used a good variety of camera shots.  I think that the music video came out much better than we had all expected.

4) How did you used new media tenchnologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? 

Throughout our music video project we have used a variety of different technologies, we have used Final Cut, Photoshop and Blogger as well as the video camera and still camera.  We used Final Cut to produce the music video and we edited our music video on this as well.  Also on Final Cut we made our directors commentary and edited it.  We used Photoshop to create the two ancillary tasks, the magazine advert and digi pak, this proved to be one of the hardest new media technologies to use as not many of us had experience from it, but we all contributed with ideas but some of us were better than others at using it.  We used Blogger to record our research and planning stages as well as to upload the rough cut music video and final video as well as the 2 ancillary tasks and of course to show our evaluation.  We used the video camera to film all of our footage, and we used the stills cameras to take the photo for our digi pak, all of these new media technologies proved to be key in making sure we had a successful product.

Sunday 27 November 2011

Director Commentary

A directors commentary is typically made for bonus features of a DVD. It is often made as a commentary over the whole feature, but sometimes just certain scenes.
 A commentary can contain more than one speaker. For example, directors are often accompanied by the actors from the film, or the producer.
Audio commentary's allow the audience to find out extra information they may find interesting about the film, that they might not have otherwise been able to find out.
 The directors commentary's can be more personal to the audience as it can feel like the director is talking directly to them.

Thursday 24 November 2011

What is a directors commentary? (Homework)

A Director's Commentary:

An audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a talk or comments by one or more people. Commentaries can be serious or entertaining in nature, and can add information which otherwise would not be disclosed to audience members, an example would be on a DVD where the director might talk about how he made the film.

There are several different types of commentary. The two main types simply define the length of the commentary rather than the type of content. They are:
  • Partial or scene-specific, which only covers selected scenes of the film. Sometimes these are recorded without the speaker viewing the film and thus the commentator may make more general comments than pointing out specific details.
  • Feature-length or screen-specific, which is recorded in one session: the speakers watch the movie from beginning to end and give their thoughts directly based on what is happening on-screen.
Typically a commentary track will include feature-length commentary from the film's director, cast members, or occasionally writers and producers.

Plan for the rest of term

Now that we are drawing to an end, and have finished the music video and ancillary tasks, we have to concentrate on other things such as the evaluation and our director's commentary.

The 4 Evaluation Questions are:

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

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

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

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

On Mondays lesson (28th) we will be answering these questions (above), on Wednesdays lesson (which is cancelled) we have to type up the times response onto the blog and prepare our script. And then on the Thursday which is the 1st December we will be filming the script in a time slot of 45 mins (in classroom D2 from 3:25 - 4:10).  Then on the monday (5th December) we will be editing, the wednesday of that week is the deadline for editing, and then on the thursday of that week we have time for some peer feedback. 
12th December onwards - time to finalise the blog.
16th December (Friday) - we get to watch everyones music video at the Picturehouse in Cambridge!

We have a short time to fit alot in, but it can and will be done!

What we have been up to in our lessons this week

In our 3 lessons this week and Thursdays last week (17th) we had to complete the two Ancillary Tasks we were given, which consisted of a Magazine Advert and a Digi-Pack.

We started with the Digi-Pack as we thought this would take the longest, we thought up some ideas but when we tested them out on the template they didn't turn out as well as we thought they would, one idea that the group liked was with a tree/leaves background but we needed to put the 3 boys on the front cover and we couldn't make the product look professional enough, so we decided to go out and shoot some still images, trying to keep with the same theme, we managed to do this and got some good pictures.  We used an outside shot near a tree with the boys all staggered, we flipped the image on Photoshop and they fitted on the front with the leaves and trees in the background and on the back image, this idea took us a while to come up with, but I think that it was worth taking still shots because the product looks much more professional than if we had cropped out the boys from a part in the video.

For our Magazine Advert, we had a little less trouble, as there was less space to fill and we already had the image from the video which we wanted to be on the front, which was of all 3 boys walking away from the camera.  The magazine advert took a shorter amount of time to complete but we still think that it was successful.

Both ancillary tasks were completed on Photoshop, some of the group had worked on it before and some hadn't, I had used it before but wasn't very confident on the program, but I still knew the basics which was what mattered most.

I think that in the time in which we were given we completed the ancillary tasks to a high standard.

Digi Pack - Ancillary

Here is our final Digi Pack cover, which was one of two ancillary tasks we had to complete, we looked at other artists digi packs for ideas such as Robbie Williams, and we have tried to make the product look as professional as possible.  We did this product on Photoshop which did prove to be slightly challenging as only some of the group were confident with using it, but we all contributed ideas and took into account feedback from our peers.  And we believe that the outcome is successful.

Magazine Advert - Ancillary

This is the first of our ancillary tasks completed, the magazine advert.  We have tried to make the final product as professional as possible by using quotes, rating it, including a price, and even adding a QR Code which is one of the newest technologies which is being used.  Some of us were more confident than others on Photoshop, but we all contributed various ideas and took into account any feedback which was given.

Wednesday 23 November 2011

Shcedule For Next Few Weeks

23rdth Nov: Digi-pak editing
24th Nov: Digi-pak editing 

28th Nov: Timed response to the evaluation questions.
30th Nov: No lessson. Type responses onto the blog. 
1st Dec: Filming Presentation Script - D2 3.25-4.10

5th Dec: Editing director commentary
7th Dec: Editing (deadline)
8th Dec: Peer feedback of directors commentary

12th Dec: Finalizing blog.

Thursday 17 November 2011

Ideas For Digi-Pak

Images we are thinking about using for DVD Cover..









Image that we plan on using for the magazine advert


Analysing Student Digi-Paks

We are analysing a student digi-pak that used the running theme of a derelict area and graffiti.

The video featured showed a derelict area with two main artists graffitiing the area. The colour filters and the lighting combined creates a somewhat dire theme as well, dark and dreary.

The DVD cover features both actors in the video next to a grubby white background which is graffitied which matches the theme of the video. The inner cover of the dvd is similar, however it only shows the grubby-white graffiti background. The back cover also features the features of the DVD as well as the BFCC certification, barcode and DVD PAL logo. The spine of the cover was plain black with a plain white text.

The magazine advert had a thick black border on the top and bottom blended into a picture of the derelict area and grubby-white graffitied walls. This matches the visual theme running through the video and DVD cover. The text in the black background is white and the same text on the spine of the DVD, which shows good continuity. The magazine advert shows the general conventions of the adverts with a star-rating, where to purchase the DVD from and release date.

Wednesday 16 November 2011

Response to feedback of final edit

The feedback that we received from the group was consistent in both the good and somewhat few negative points. We believe from our feedback that we have successfully created a good music video.
The negative feedback that we received (in some places we think irrelative) was fair. The main point being that our costumes were not "boyband" enough. If we had the chance to re-do our video we would definitely co-ordinate ourselves better so that we do have better style costumes. In response to the comments on explanation to narrative, we purposely created our video so there was no narrative. However, we could have created a narrative if we wanted to and if thats what our audience wanted to see then we could add a narrative next time.

Group Feedback Final Edit

Lewis, Liam & Matt.

We thought that the lip syncing was brilliant, you all got really into it & played your parts really well. The editing with the split screens fits really well and helps identify each character of the group. You show emotion well in your acting which makes the lyrics seem believable, the filters over the footage help aswell with the mood of the song.
The beginning is good considering how different it is, we think we would have struggled to come up with a better idea than you. The shot at 2:00ish is really good with you three on the steps together. 

Some of the shots are slightly 'shakey' (4:00 through) We also felt that your costumes weren't 'boy band' enough, perhaps consider massive jackets with furry hoods. otherwise really good! 

Ben,ryan,samanda,michael.
- the use of filters within the video clip were great which helps the audience engage with the mood of the lyrics.
-lip syncing was also really good as were the emotions of the artist
-it promotes the artists individually through the split screens and the close ups, also, seeing as it's a group singing it, the mid-long shots represent them perfectly
- stereotypical boy-band shown through strong emotion whilst singing
-the transitions between the shots were really effective especially the fade out effect.


T2-40
- sells the artist really well as they have all the screen time and because of the commitment in performance, the voices sound as if they really suit you/ could be your actual singing voice. 
- kept to genre conventions, looking like a classic boy band; casual, mainstream costume, emotive singing, friendship mentality and yet funny at appropriate times.  
- like the split screen, and it works because timing is perfect! You didn't need any special effects, worked well keeping it simple. Love the beginning bit where it fades from black and white to colour as the song begins. Good variety of camera shots - makes it interesting to watch. 
- to improve we would like to see a bit more of an explanation of the narrative, although its made clear in the lyrics. 

T2-39

Good:

There were some excellent features within the video
Very good acting and emotion put into the song and the singing
Considering that they could not source the lyrics, they did well to work out the lyrics etc.
Very smooth cuts and transitions
Good use of different effects and split screen in the video, adds to the effectiveness and makes the video look more professional 
We really enjoyed it!!!

Bad:

The narrative was a bit vague
No JLS tank tops 
The background in the hall could have been better made up
Lack of outside locations
The end loses its momentum
There have not been massive changes since the rough cut
 


Monday 14 November 2011

Final Edit - Music Video - JLS Strange

What We Did Today - 14/11/2011

Today we completed the editing process. We added another split screen so just one didn't look random as well as desaturating some of the clips to add anther dimension to our video. We edited minor issues as well to make the video look more refined and professional.

Rough Cut Footage

Wednesday 9 November 2011

What we Did Today - 9th November

Today we finished editing the whole of the sequence in final cut. This included all the changes that Amar suggested. Next lesson (Monday) we need to colour correct our video and we will be finished the editing process.

Amar's Feedback

Amar gave us some great feedback about our video. He gave us a detailed but concise list of things that would help us improve our video.

Content he liked:

  • The performances
  • The un-seriousness towards the end
  • Location choices
  • Splitscreen
  • Transition choices
  • "Cheesy" in a good way
Improvements suggested:
  • Use more cross disolves in the verses to give the chorus more punch
  • Add more of the forest location to keep it in the video
  • Condense the timeline
  • Use another split screen so just one doesn't look random
  • Take off breaking glass effect

Todays Tasks: 9/11/2011

Today we need to finish the editing process. We have 50 seconds of the song left to finish, as well as adding colour corrections and filters.
Should we not finish (although we probably will) we have tonight's open evening to finish editing. Monday we will commence writing our evaluations and our digipak.


Monday 7 November 2011

What We Did Today - 7th November

Today we spent the whole lesson editing. We have managed to work through just over a minute of the song and have nearly finished. We have done some research into creating a glass smashing effect and if we have enough time will add it in towards the end of editing. We also did research into and managed to implement a split screen effect into the video.

Attempt to Contact the Artist

Being an avid fan of twitter, i thought that twitter would be the best way to try to contact JLS. So I messaged the boys via Twitter..


I will update the blog if i get a response. 

Wednesday 2 November 2011

Peer Feedback of Rough Cut

What our peers thought was good:
The resounding comments from everyone was that the quality of the lip syncing was brilliant along with the emotion that we conveyed in the song. 
"Really love the commitment to the performance"
"Lip syncing was really well done" 

There was also a resounding factor that we could improve on. This is that our peers told us that we should use more locations to add variety as well as changing clothes and and colour corrections.
"Not much location variation"
"Could there be more relevance to the locations?"


Problems we have encountered so far..

The problems we have encountered so far have been:

  • Getting the actors during our filming time proved a problem.
  • Deciding when to film and what to wear when filming.
  • Deciding which locations to use.
  • Time management because of various problems such as only having lesson time to film.
  • When to edit proved a problem because we had to film during lesson time, and also some people are better than other at filming.
 
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