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.

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