Evaluation -Keeley

Evaluation

1.

The first step of our project was to chose a song from the sample given and then pitch our initial ideas for this song and say why we believe that we should be given the song to create a music video for, the song we choseand pitched for was Much Against Everyone’s Advice by Soulwax.

Much Against Everyone’s Advice is of the indie/rock genre mix, so while creating our music video, advert and digi pack we attempted to comply with the conventions of our music genre as much as possible. Before giving our pitch, we began research on other bands of its genre and started planning idea for our products. Our first steps of planning was the mise-en scene which included; our mains locations, what instruments we needed (guitars) and our style of clothes (casual), these steps would make the all of our products comply with a basic conventions of our music genre throughout the whole video, in the digi pack and the advert.

Before we had chosen our music track we looked at Goodwins theory and briefly studied his thoughts of what makes a successful music video, so when it came to creating our music video we attempted to use his theory to make ours to the best of our ability. Some of these points and how we used them in our video where: Music to visuals, while editing our music video we often changed the shot along with the beat or changed location when something significant happens in the track, for example when heavy guitar starts we would cut to a close up of the guitar. In our music video, our band has a lot of screen time, and a lot of close ups of the band, especially the lead singer, this complies with Goodwins point about demands of the record label by promoting the band and artists throughout the video. Another of Goodwins points is Genre characteristics which we had to constantly think about for everything we film and done while creating our products. We planned and then filmed in various urban locations, some of these locations where urban but slightly upper class and we filmed there because it would give the impression of not just complying with the rules of society(Bands of the rock genre are seen to be rebels more often than bands of other genres) so this enhances us even further to being part of our genre. We wore casual clothing and had some basic instruments that a band of our genre would have (we could not get a drummer and drum kit to our locations so we then decided it would be best not to include one, because having a few shots of the whole band and then only the lead singer and guitarists in others would not look right). In our music video we took into consideration the lyrics to visuals of the song and decided upon a few key points to show, however mainly the lyrics do not match the visuals (only really when the band playing and singing in time to the track, also one key point where the lead singer says sitting along on a a bench and he is along on a bench in the visuals)

2.

Before we had chosen our music track we looked at Goodwins theory and briefly studied his thoughts of what makes a successful music video, so when it came to creating our music video we attempted to use his theory to make ours to the best of our ability. Some of these points and how we used them in our video where: Music to visuals, while editing our music video we often changed the shot along with the beat or changed location when something significant happens in the track, for example when heavy guitar starts we would cut to a close up of the guitar. In our music video, our band has a lot of screen time, and a lot of close ups of the band, especially the lead singer, this complies with Goodwins point about demands of the record label by promoting the band and artists throughout the video. Another of Goodwins points is Genre characteristics which we had to constantly think about for everything we film and done while creating our products. We planned and then filmed in various urban locations, some of these locations where urban but slightly upper class and we filmed there because it would give the impression of not just complying with the rules of society(Bands of the rock genre are seen to be rebels more often than bands of other genres) so this enhances us even further to being part of our genre. We wore casual clothing and had some basic instruments that a band of our genre would have (we could not get a drummer and drum kit to our locations so we then decided it would be best not to include one, because having a few shots of the whole band and then only the lead singer and guitarists in others would not look right). In our music video we took into consideration the lyrics to visuals of the song and decided upon a few key points to show, however mainly the lyrics do not match the visuals (only really when the band playing and singing in time to the track, also one key point where the lead singer says sitting along on a a bench and he is along on a bench in the visuals)

The combination of our main products (music video, digi pack and magazine advert) works well. We created a very strong link throughout all 3 of these products, the main concurring theme in our media products is the mise-en scene. We used the same location for our digi pack and magazine advert photos as well as for some of our music video film footage, While planning our filming we were constantly trying to use location that we could later go back to and that wouldn’t have dramatically change so that they would have consistent continuity. We were doing this so that we could later return with a stills camera to take photos for our digi pack and magazine advert and keep the same mise-en scene. After filming we returned to college and watching through our footage we then decided upon our location. The location is a bench on the edge of a field with an old stone wall behind it, in this location we were able to easily get good medium/long shot photos, this shot type allowed us to show all three band members clearly while still showing the area we are located. This gives the band more artistic representation and promotion we did this so we would meet with the demands of the record label. We also wore the same clothes on the day we went to take photos as on the day we film our footage, this meant that the mise-en scene link between all of our media products was made stronger. Another strong link between our digi pack and magazine advert are the colours and font, in both of these media products the font of the band name’s font is the same as well as the colouring, we also matched the colouring of our t-shirts to the text bringing a further link between the band and our ancillary texts, this colour scheme is also typical of our genre, a lot of indie bands use bright colours that contrast.

3.

Throughout our project we were receiving regular feedback from our audiences, whether being our peers, teacher or other audiences, either in the form of text on our constantly updated internet blogs (blogspot.com) or verbally in the class room. Using blogspot.com to blog we were able to update our progress throughout the project we could also receive and record feedback easily. By uploading our music videos to You Tube it gave us the opportunity to receive feedback from members of the public because anybody can comment on our video, this is the same for blgspot.com anybody could comment on any our published posts.

The first piece of feedback we received was for our pitch that we gave to the class, telling them about our ideas for the track we had decided to use (Much Against Everyone’s Advice, by Soulwax). The feedback we received for this was very helpful, because it was widely thought that our main idea of using separate frames was not going to give the desired effect and was going to look too busy, with lots of separate frames with different moving images on screen at once. After taking this feedback into consideration we then back tracked and came up with the idea of using separate frames only for text/letters, even though we were told this would be more time consuming it could look very effective if done properly.

The next time we were given feedback was on our rough cut of our music video, we knew that our rough cut feedback was not going to represent our final product so we were not expecting to get very positive feedback. Our rough cut was not even near finished, we only had around 1 minute of footage compiled and it had not even been put together correctly. This was due to changes in plans and time issues, we had a limited time to film our footage and edit. The majority of the feedback we receive we had all ready anticipated and taken into account, like some shots were on screen for too long and some of it not being in sync with the audio, but we also received feedback that we had not anticipated. The main point we had not anticipate was that we did not have enough close ups of our lead singers face while he was singing. After receiving this feedback we then went out and film our lead singer singing the entire song in close up in 3 different locations. To make this footage as effective as possible we had the song playing while filming and also had the lyrics so when it came to lip syncing the footage we were able to do it as easily as possible. The extra footage was very useful to create a more professional music video, when edited in with our already existing footage, it also helped us meet the demands of the record label by having better artistic representation.

4.

We were constantly using new media technology throughout our whole project of creating the music video and ancillary texts. These ranged from using the internet to contact the band who created our song to using various editing software’s to create our products, to using cameras to collecting footage and photos for our products.

The internet was one of the most important new media technologies that we used in this project. Before forming our groups and choosing our music track, we briefly studied Goodwins theory and created a PowerPoint on them and how his points have been used in a popular, modern music video, we were then able to upload these to the internet using a specialist website (slideshare.net) and post them on our blog. The internet allowed us to record all of our work in progress and completed work by using blogspot.com. Our blog has been a fantastic way to constantly upload our work and has given us the ability to receive feedback from any and everyone very easily, for anybody can comment on our blog to give us feedback, this was also a very useful way for our teacher to give us our feedback so while working we could easily refer back to it, even out of the class room.

During our planning we contacted the band Soulwax and asked for their permission to create another music video for their pre-existing song (Much Against Everyone Advice) they then emailed us back very fast giving us there permission this allowed us to begin our planning.

The internet was one of the most important new media technologies that we used in this project. Before forming our groups and choosing our music track, we briefly studied Goodwins theory and created a PowerPoint on them and how his points have been used in a popular, modern music video, we were then able to upload these to the internet using a specialist website (slideshare.net) and post them on our blog. The internet allowed us to record all of our work in progress and completed work by using blogspot.com. Our blog has been a fantastic way to constantly upload our work and has given us the ability to receive feedback from any and everyone very easily, for anybody can comment on our blog to give us feedback, this was also a very useful way for our teacher to give us our feedback so while working we could easily refer back to it, even out of the class room.

The internet was also a valuable research tool, it allowed us to look at the band who created our song and get a feel for their vibe and music, as well as us letting to look at other bands from the same genres music videos and digi packs, so when we were planning our products we could more accurately stick to the conventions of our genre of music.

To create our media products one of the most important new media technologies needed was a camera to film on. Our college provided us with a digital camera that we could easily upload our footage on the Mac using final cut. However due to limited supply of cameras and high demand from all of the media students we only had one full day and one evening to film outside of college. Our college also supplied us with a still camera to take photos for our digi pack and magazine advert, as well as providing us with the use of their Macs at college and the software they have on them.

The two main pieces of software that we used to create our media products where; Final Cut to edit and manipulate the filmed footage, and Photoshop to edit and manipulate the still photos we took.

We used Final Cut a lot during this project because of the shear amount of time it takes to edit footage and make it look professional. Already having knowledge of how to use final cut from previous media projects, helped me in editing our footage with some speed and the ability to use various tools with success. Some of the tools that where most useful are: the cut tool for cutting clips to the correct length, the fade tool for fading either the sound or video in or out, the crop tool to change the frames of video clips, wireframes for resizing the video clips, the voice over tool to record extra audio, various different filters and using key frames to make a frame change size and/or move around. The key frame tool was the hardest to use but after a while I got used to using it and was able to make good use of it.

Photoshop was another of our main editing software used, we used it to edit our digi pack and magazine advert. We manipulated the images in Photoshop by carefully selecting parts of our images that we wanted to keep in colour then inversing the selected areas and de-colouring everything else apart from the parts previously selected. We done this so that we could keep the main features of our photos in colour while having everything else black and white, this created our desired effect which highlighted the band members and the immediate area around them. We also used Photoshop to add key features that a magazine advert and digi pack would include, for example a bar code on the digi pack and the record label on both as well as many other features that all helped make our products look more realistic.

Word Count 2128

Evaluation Commentary

Transcipt Evaluation Commentaries

Script:
Tom Halkyard: Ok, so we were set the task of coming up with 3 media products for the release of an album as part of a promotional package. This had to include a Digipak magazine advert and a music video all created by ourselves.

Tom Halkyard: We were given the track, ‘Much Against Everyone’s Advice’ by Soulwax. We didn’t know much about the band but after researching them we were very happy with our choice.

Alex Winter: Our first step was to come up with ideas for the products we were going to produce. We created a pitch and presented it in front of our peers and got feedback used to improve ideas for our products

Tom Halkyard: Feedback we received was very useful and had lot of positives in it as to why our ideas were useful to our product. We received some feedback that helped us and put us off going with our ideas but most of it was good and we followed through with most or our ideas.

Keeley Moore: After receiving feedback from our pitch we researched further into the band soulwax and other bands from the genre indie/rock. We then e-mailed the band soulwax and asked their permission to film a new music video using their pre-existing track. They then e-mailed us back a few days later giving us their permission.
Using these ideas we created a storyboard and a shot by shot timeline so on our shooting day it would be easier to film all the footage we needed.

Tom Halkyard: So it came to the day of the shoot and we were all very excited and we had the storyboard and the shot by shot timeline ready for us so that we could stick to the script of what we had to do. There were a few challenges of our shoot such as:

Alex Winter: All our music video needed to be in the daytime so time was a massive issue

Tom Halkyard: We were only given a day to complete our filming so everything had to be planned very well in order to fit it all in.

Keeley Moore: It started raining in the beginning of the morning when we were planning to shoot.

Alex Winter: We did face some problems while filming, one of these was that it rained quite heavily in the night and the morning which hindered us going to some of our chosen locations.

Tom Halkyard: Also the rainy atmosphere was not part of the mise-en-scene we had planned for so we had to make some alterations to things such as camera angles.

Keeley Moore: Later in the day the weather turned out to be quite sunny there was still rain on the floor which created some glare on the camera in some of our locations.
Using the footage we filmed on the filming day we managed to compile a rough cut of our music video
But our rough cut was nothing like our final product due to time issues.

Tom Halkyard: The feedback wasn’t on the perfect rough cut we would have hoped for so some of the feedback we received was going to be negative anyway and we had already taken it into consideration. However, some feedback we received really did help us with thinking about how we can improve it for our final cut. This included techniques and other ideas of how to improve music video.
When we came up with the different frames idea we decided to practice the technique on simple images. Here is how it turned out.

Alex Winter: To improve the authenticity of the lip syncing we had the music playing in the background while we were filming and also the lyrics.

Tom Halkyard: The feedback we took into consideration the most was that we needed to include more close-ups. This way we would have better representation of the artist and everyone would know who the band members are closer up whereas before in the rough cut we had quite long distance shots

Alex Winter: So we decided to film tom, the main singer of the band singing the whole song in 3 different locations.

Tom Halkyard: This way we could cut to and from the distance shots to have good varied shot lengths.

Keeley Moore: Using this extra footage we collected we edited it and mixed into our original footage to create our final music video.

Tom Halkyard: Now our music video was complete we moved onto the ancillary products. The first of which was the Digipak. We looked at samples of them from real life examples such as Blur and Alicia Keys.

Alex Winter: We looked at the conventions of indie/rock genre Digipaks. We found from this that they are quite colourful.

Tom Halkyard: Other, more obvious, features of the Digipak are; the album title, the artist, the record label and the track listings as well as others.

Keeley Moore: After researching more into this information we then went out to our previous locations we filmed in to take pictures for the digipak and magazine advert.

Tom Halkyard: Going back to take pictures where we filmed added to the effectiveness of the combination of the products.

Alex Winter: It also created a link.

Tom Halkyard: We also looked at examples of magazine adverts particularly from our genre and the conventions of these.

Alex Winter: The conventions of the magazine advert have more advertising details such as the release date of the album.

Tom Halkyard: After research and planning we set about creating our ancillary products using many of the conventions we had found from the samples

Keeley Moore: We used many of the different photoshop tools to edit our images to make them look the best for our magazine advert and for our Digipak.

Evaluation - Tom

Evaluation Questions:

When we were originally coming up with the ideas for our media products for the Rock/ Indie track, Much Against Everyone’s Advice, we decided that we wanted to follow well-known conventions for it’s genre, which we researched. We used this tactic throughout our three media products; music video, magazine advert, Digipak. In order to follow the Rock/ Indie genre we considered clear artist representation to be the most important aspect to all our products. We wanted our audience to see us and know who the band members are to increase the intensity of the relationship between the viewer and those on screen. This links to an increase in popularity from the audience if they feel they can relate to the band and this would tie in with the demands of the record label, an important aspect according to Goodwin’s theories. Another very key aspect to our music video was the inclusion of guitars so that instantly, our audience will be able to see that we are a band and know what sort of music to expect. This ties in with the rock genre music video convention of a performance taking place in front of the camera. However, a less mainstream approach that we took was, to include the name of the song at some different stages of the music video. We used a technique called key framing in the programme FinalCut Express to make the letters of the words move in and out of the frame. This was something that gave our video a unique selling point and will differentiate our music video from our competitors'. We also followed the basic conventions of music videos such as cutting from shots to other shots in time to the music on the beats. This is very important as without it, the production would seem very amateur and not have the same effect and link between music and visuals.

The main factor, which we thought about throughout the creation of our three media products, was making sure they all strongly related to each other so the audience or consumer knew instantly that the product belonged to us. We considered this brand awareness to be crucial to the impact our brand wanted to have on the market. We included a picture on both our Digipak and magazine advert which uses the same location and band members as in the music video so that our audience will recognise the link and the artist representation.

When we planned the creation of the products we thought that these links of the drawing out colour from band members in dull, lifeless locations would add to the effectiveness of the product combination.

Throughout the creation process of our products, we received a lot of feedback from different sources, from our target audience to our teacher, to the real band, Soulwax. We contacted the band themselves to ask permission to use their track and they got back to us very quickly which helped us to push on with our planning.

After we pitched our initial ideas to our target audience, we received some valuable feedback as to what might work or what might be less effective. It was good to have a different perspective from that of our own. One example was that when we spoke about the idea to have different frames showing different footage, it was thought that it could look too busy. We took this into consideration and thought about how we could tackle this. We planned to use text or letters in the different frames instead so the footage wasn’t moving and therefore less busy.

We again received feedback after we compiled a rough cut of our music video. We knew upon completion that the rough cut would not at all reflect how our final product would look. We had a very tight schedule to film and put our footage together and therefore we couldn’t complete the video for the whole song and also the video wasn’t always synced with the music. A lot of the feedback we received for improvements to our work, we already knew needed to be changed and therefore some of it was less relevant or useful.

However, a good piece of feedback that we received and really appreciated was that we needed a wider variety of shot lengths. The inclusion of close-ups of the artists was what they particularly made reference to, "There are a number of long shots, these need to be punctuated with close-ups. You need to incorporate close-ups very early on to visually establish your artist straight away". When reflecting upon our footage we realised that this was indeed the case so we had another filming session. This time we filmed the lead singer and member of the group singing the whole of the track in 2 different locations and 3 different lengths of shots. We then mixed this into our music video, ensuring the music and visuals were synced correctly for precise use of lip syncing, and we were very happy with the result.

During the whole project, we presented, constructed and planned our ideas all using new media technologies and different software. Without the use of the internet, our products would not have been of the quality we would hope for. It allowed us to research conventions and examples of products which were very helpful for inspiring our products as well as allowing us to research Soulwax and their products and other products from the genre. We used the internet to view the band, Soulwax’s website and products which gave us a feel of how they conduct themselves in their work and how we can use some of their themes in our products. We looked at examples of Digipak’s such as Blur’s Greatest Hits and work from Jennifer Lopez which helped us to see what needed to be included in the product and conventions we needed to follow for our own product we were able to access these by using amazon, online shopping website. The use of the online Blog ‘housed’ our whole project as we continuously uploaded our work and posted our progress throughout the project. Without this we wouldn’t have been able to display our work as effectively and we wouldn’t have been able to access it so easily. We used it to record our ideas and the feedback we received at each stage of our project and its all there for everyone to see. The two main pieces of professional software that we used to create our products were, FinalCut Express and Photoshop.

FinalCut Express was the video compiling and editing programme that we used to physically create the video. We captured footage from a digital video recorder and were able to place it straight into the programme and could add it to our music video timeline. It’s simple to use the programme and use the many tools it provides to edit video clips. These include, trimming clips, fading in and out of clips, introducing filters to change the colour of clips and animating clips within a frame to name only a few. All of these were needed in the production of our music video.

Photoshop was used mostly for the ancillary products. Providing a library of tools and effects to manipulate raw pictures into professional looking, refined images. We used its clever tool, magic wand, in order to select band members and make part, or all, of them a solid colour whilst keeping the rest of the image the same. This made a good effective and professional look, highlighting the band members, which we used in both our Digipak and magazine advert in a continuing theme.
Of course, the availability of the video camera and tripod, the digital camera and the Apple Mac computer were the foundation of our success giving us the opportunity and provision to complete such a media project. These media technologies really did facilitate the research, the planning and the producing of everything we did.