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

Thoughtout all of the stages of my music video i have used an online diary to keep track on everything i have done for the music video. It is named blogspot.com. I store all the activity i do on here and keep it upto date. I've involved;
. reseach
. planning
. print screens
. photo evidence
. feedback
and many many more things on here. This is the posts i have posted onto my blog. I can edit and change them whenever i want to do so.

I found it a lot easier to post everything on here, (Blogspot.com) rather than write everything up and print off pictures.

Software

To film our music video we used a Canon DV Camera. We were also provided with a tripod to prevent shacky hands therefore bad camera work. We found the camera worked really well for filming the music video. Its functions such as zooming in and out become very useful for us. This equipment that we used are made for home use, holidays and tourist attractions, or in some cases everyday use. Whereas in hollywood and music industries, the cameras would be a lot bigger with more advanced functions. 

A Sony Camera was used for the photoshoot we did and the promotional material. The camera is high quality in pixels and can enable you to edit how you capture your photo through setting, flash and face detection.

For research i used the Interent and search engine Google.

Google allowed me to search for the things i wanted for expample;

. Adele 21 Album cover

. Album covers best & Worse

. Music Posters

. Photoshop

. ect...

With Google i could also view places when planning for filming. Here below is a picture of a street we planned to film. Google allowed us to check it out before we got there. This prevented us from wasting time and plan our rushes.

Facebook has also been used thoughout the process of asking for feedback. People have given us feedback on both Facebook and Youtube for both the First Cut and Final Cut videos, so we can use different sources to allow people to comment if they don't have an account on one of those websites.

To show a wider audience our work, we again used the internet. YouTube is the number 1 place to promote yourself and music. For example; Justin Beiber got discovered on Youtube and now is one of the worlds most famous names in music. Youtube allows you to upload and share whatever experiences you want to, or helps you get recognition. So for this reason to get true feedback we posted the video onto Youtube.

When using software we used Adobe Premier Pro which is an advanced video editing software. It allows is to do the following;

. construct our rushes

. place our footage from the DV Camera

. edit the footage on the time line.

With being able to use advanced software we are able to create a much more advanced level of work as we have choice of the editing. We can create a better version on this programme than we would on a non advanced programme such as Windows Live Movie Maker.

Windows Live Movie Maker

Adobe Premire Pro

As you can clearly see from the pictures above, there is a lot more editing buttons and choices to pick from.

When editing the photos we used Photoshop. Photoshop is used by;

. industries

. fashion

. design

. publication

. Home use

. Avertisment

 Just like Adobe Premier, its effects are much more advanced than softwares such as Microsoft Picture It 9. Adobe Photoshop as a much more advanced cropping tools, by magically erasing certain areas of colour/background/space to make the cropping process easier for wanting just one part of the picture.

 We are able to use effects that other software's wont have, they may have some of the effects that Photoshop have but not as advanced, the ability to adjust the effect to what you want to that Photoshop has.

Evaluation 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After reading the feedback we have been given back on Youtube and Facebook, we found that many members of the audience watch the performer more than the actual video as a whole. we found that no one had commented on the mise-en-scene or camera work we provided, however being a lover of music myself, it is not often i focus on where the video has been shot or the the ways the rushes have been captured either, i find my main focus is on the artist themselves and the way they are dressed. 


When putting all the feedback notes together we found that there was a consistant comment on the over acting. However, we found that this was a problem too, as we found it very difficult to sync the music with the movement, but we managed to cure this by speeding up and slowing down the footage we have captured. So from this experience we found for a good music video it is best to have a performer that is not shy but also not over confident and can act natual.  


Print Screen of the over confident singing in our music video.

 

Over all i found that the audiences opinion is extreamly important when creating something for them. They can give a honest opinion and tell the truth you need to hear. With the feedback provided we were able to correct and improve the video and make it to suite the audiences standards. This was also good as i found it taught me how tough the music industry is and how important ''looks'' are when it comes to the wider society.     

                                              

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

Thoughout the process of the music video we have done very simular work to our inspirational artist Adele, makeing the combination of our main product and our ancillary text very effective. For our music video we drifted far away from using bright colours and bright lights, this colours we did use where very bland and diluted from thier original colour. We also just used basic black and white for the majority of our shots. We dicided to do this due to Adele's trade mark. She is always surrounded in black/grey. Her clothing is always dark and very neutral.

The images we chosen for our digi-pack are a various selection of head shots, long shots, close up shots and are from both the photoshoot and music video itself. We decided to printscreen some of the shots from the music video because we wanted a change and not have them all as headshots. We found that after the photoshoot we focused more on Chloe's make up and making it like Adele more than selection. In the music video we have a multiple selection of shots. For example; we turned one of our rushes black and white from the influence of Adele, and this shot was Chloes boots when she was walking around the pond. We print screend this shot to prevent it being full of headshots.  

Although we did have lots of close ups of chloes face in the photoshoot as well as the music video, the angles we shot them changed to give us more variation and showed her mood and facial expressions more clearly. The helped a lot with the miserable bland colours and merged well together.


Below are examples of our work and how we have chosen certain effects from adeles album 21.

As you can see with the album covers here, we have used the black and white filters. When photographing Chloe we made sure she was using deep emotion like Adele, so this can show the type of music we are representing. We made sure chloe was very deep in thought at the time just like adele. So not only have we shown this consistant theme throught the music video but also the photos and album cover too! Along side of the photos we also did the same for the text we used on the cover. On Adeles album she has large clear writing on the front advertising her name. We decided that due to us have the neutral dark colours as a background too, it would be best to choose something bright, this way it will not blend in within the background and it will be clear to the audience. However, we wanted to make it just a little bit different and not to ''bland'' therefore used a reddish colour for the album title ''Changes''. We decided to choose the colour red as it also represents the poppies in the music video. We thought this give the album a bit of a balance and not too much of one thing, and sticking to the inspirational piece of work. (Adele 21 Album cover).

Evaluation 1 - In what ways does your Media Product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of Real Media Products?

The coventions in our music video were not really different in a way in which we made it 'new'. As we used Adele as our inspiration, our music video conventions were very simular to those of another artist, eg. Adele.

We showed these conventions through the narative, artist and setting.

When planning and filming our music video, we used Chloe (the artist) as the character, this helped us when doing the narrative. We had Chloe acting her emotions. This shows the artists skills assets to lift the sucess of the video's materiel. Many artists such as Whitney Huston do this, they involve thier song around themselves and they are often based on relationships, family or having fun. She takes the lead role and performs the whole video. Along side of this we have the song itself as it adds extra meaning to the video too. The song explains the filmed scenes and helps the audience keep on track with what is happening thoughout the video and why the artist/actor is responding the way they are infront of the camera. This also allows the audience to have a closer connection with the song and artist when relating to both the lyrics and emotions. When they have connected to the video it is also good for promotional reasons. This being when one friend likes what they see and feel, they pass it onto their friends and so on.

We used the idea of touching the audience and allowing them to relate to our video when using the poppies. They symbolise rememberance and death or the loved ones who went to the army to fight. Many families could relate to this message therefore creating a more meaningful and deeper message. The coventions for the army are often used for choir music videos or celebrities showing thier respect through charities. Also this year the army mens wives have all joined together and created a choir. The do this as it has a huge success rate from the public as it shows a huge amount of respect and again - huge amounts of people can relate to it.  

When it comes to the music video, we used a variety of conventions. We used Singing Shots, non Singing Shots and Performance Shots. Using all these made our music video a come to life, prevented it from being boring and allowed us to not only experimentrt with all the different types of shots but made it a lot more entertaining and interesting to watch.

When planning we thought it would be best and more interesting to use the black and white effect. We used these to do two things.

1). Show the difference between singing shots and non singing shots. (B&W - None singing)

2). Seperate the story line from the song, but keeping them closley linked.

We found that the audience liked this like this after reading their feedback.

Because we experimented and used different styles thoughout the music video, not only did it make it more interesting and something better to watch, it also gave the audience something to judge and decided whether they like the idea or not. But as said above, it was well liked by the audience as they explained it was very powerful.

After the feedback it made us realise that using the conventions you see on successful music videos. We found that when the audience were critical, everything used in a music video is expected for expample;

• Variety Shots
• Variety Scenes
• Different Camera Tecniques
• Variety of Camera Angles

We have produced two styles of advertisement/promotional material, a Magazine Poster and a CD Digi Pack. We kept a constant style throughout. When looking at other posters, especially adeles, we liked the idea and chosen to get our inspiration from this picture i found on google;

This is our design below

This is our complete CD digi pack.

Locations

Whilst filming we used many locations to shoot the music video. We used a varaity of surroundings such as bedrooms, outdoolocations in countryside mise-en-scene to keep with the style and the story throughout the filming. The reason for using the bedroom shots were to indicate in was in a home, her comfort zone and that she was alone. The bedroom is normally where a woman would be found crying alone and behind closed doors.

When filming outside we used the hill tops that surround the town. We chosen to film here because it is not busy with traffic, dog walkers are allowed and it has beautiful surrounding. The hills where also windy which also added to that sad and lonely feeling with the coldness giving a melancholy atmosphere.
Also in the town there is a local attraction named 'Towneley Hall' which is surrounded by aches of land. They have a memorial which was great for the idea of the poppies and the story of the loved one who died in the army.

Costume

As we figured the clothing we used in the music video was very simplistic.
. For the outdoor shots she worn a black coat, blue scarf, jeans and brown boots.
. For the indoor shots she worn a simple red blouse, jeans and a necklace.
. For the performance shots, a pictured white top with a jacket style top, necklace, jeans and brown boots.

Promotional Package Set #2 Poster - Idea 2

We decided to have a black background poster because it did not look right with the whole page being Chloes face. By looking at how actual posters work, they have the Album name again in a bigger font than the rest of the poster. They insert the CD Cover onto the poster either next to or under another picture of the artist or band, we decided to use it as it as a centre piece, something to catch the audiences attention. The repeating of the name Changes allows the audience to remember what the album is called. By adding Two Awarding Winning Singles, boosts the success of the artist and the album. The star rating also allows the audience to see that professionals have listened and rated the Album to boost its potential.

Asking For Feedback

Chloe has an account on DeviantART, so she asked for feedback on there..

Youtube Feedback For Final Cut

We recieved two coments on our music video which we posted onto Youtube.

The first Comment Says:

''I really like the b/w shots they were most powerful. Like the shot of you looking wistfully out the window while you're riding in the car? Great shot. The voice was a bit out of synch with the music in some parts and, as you said, you were a bit dramatic with the emphasis of certain lyrics (this made the infrequent parts where you were out of synch more noticeable). But other than those few things i thought it was great. You did a wonderful job of illistraiting the emotion of the song.''

The second Comment says;

''It's a very pretty song. A very nice singing voice.I like the guitar being the main instrument. It was soothing. I liked the black and white effects in the song. The singing and vid was a bit out of sync. But all in all, it was nice :)''

Uploaded Final Cut of Music Video to Youtube

CD Record Label

Below is the Record Label we created. We didn't want it to be too bright because of the CD cover we created. Because we used the colour black meaning it's dark, we didn't want to attract the audience to the label more than the Cover. So because of this we used a lighter colour. We chosen the 'Plastic Wrapping' text for the effect, I edited  3D effect. To make it stand out a little more I moved the text lettering a bit out of the embedded effect that made the Plastic Wrapping effect around the letters. 

New Version Of The Back Of The CD digipack

We used the exact same background of the front cover but we did not include the picture of Chloe. We Added the list of Tracks down the left hand side in the same font as before.

New Version Of The Front Of The CD digipack

Thinking back on the Feedback we recieved for the front cover of the CD cover, we all brainstormed different ways in which we can make it look more appealing and presentable for the Cover. We looked back on the Adele designs, after doing this we decided it would be good to aim for a black and white style design. We picked a photo from the second photoshoot and cropped the picture of Chloe out using the magic tool and lasso tool so it allowed us to copy it onto a different background we will create.

The Picture Used

We made the picture black and white and adjusted the Brightness and Contrast that help with making it look brighter, which is what Adele's cover does trying to not to make the photo look lost or too blended into the background.

We added a lighting effect to the background to make it look asif the picture had been taken under a spot light. These are the intstructions to add the effect;
. Filter
.Render
.Lighting Effect

We Also added the text at the side of the picture of Chloe so it is clear, noticable and not messy.

Promotional Package Set #2 Poster/Magazine Idea 1

Below is the first idea for the poster.

This is the feedback we recieved;

1). The background would need changing.
2). Font colour and size as some aspects of the poster dominate other parts of the poster.
3). The album cover will have to be bigger and more of a central.
4). Keeping the star rating and maybe have some comments would make this look better.

 

 We are going to aim for a black background and a black and white picture of Chloe, keeping with the style of Adele.

Inserts for the CD Cover

Below is another image we are working on. We taken this picture and found an effect called Diffuse Glow and like it on our picture.

Below shows how you can choose the Glow amount, how much the glow exceeds and the clear amount is how much the glow can streach across.

However, adter adding this glow we found it was too much and didnt look right on a darker background. So we decided to crop the extra glow off the picture which caused more problems. It ended up getting rid the the majority of the picture causing chloe to look abnormal.

Poppy Insert

The picture before is the one we used for the Poppy. We cropped the poppy out the picture so we could edit in on our own background.

 

This is the cropped picture which we turned into a PNG.

This is the CD Insert we created.We chosen a blue background to make the poppies stand out as well as the title and we layered the poppies. The title 'Outback' will be a curve for the CD, we thought this was a good effect, it was something to fill empty space and not make it look too crowded.

Back of the CD Cover - Experimenting

We decided to experiment with the back CD cover. We also used a print screen from the our music video of me playing the guitar. . We used the blur tool to soften the edges.

Back Of CD Cover

As we need to change the front cover we did not carry out a design as yet for the back of the CD. So instead we just created a track list. The font used for the numbers is a font called "The Last Font I'm wasting on you" and the font for the track list is called "Poor Richard" which made a nice variety in the design, they go well together.

Feedback From The First CD Cover Idea.

After recieving feedback for the design we did last session it taught us many things we need to learn. Here are a few points we got told we need to change;

1. The picture blends in with the background
2. The writing at the top wouldnt be on the front cover of a CD
3. The Cover itself is too dull.
4.  We need to make the text more clear.

As we found it difficult to change some of these points on the editing programme, we looked back on Adeles photos and noticed that she used a Black Background rather than a grey one, and the picture does not blend. Also, the names of her Album and her own name are large and clear. Through this feedback we can improve and know what appeals more to an audience and make it look more proffesional.

Creating a Front CD Cover - Version 1

Here is the first idea for the CD Cover. "Treasure". We decided we wanted to use this dark red colour as it symbolizes the heart ache and goes well with the Black and White theme. We added Chloe's name on the cover, it a signature style of hanswriting. We also used a sepia effect on the CD to give it some more colour.

After we did this we changed the Name of the Album from ''Tresure'' to ''Outback'' and also changed the font of the title.

Promotional Package set #1 - CD Cover and Inserts Idea 1

As we were using the idea of Adele, we decided that we will choose one of the pictures from the new photoshoot and turn it black and white.

The photo below is what we have created and now ready to be made Black and White.

Using the programme 'Adobe Photoshop CS4', we created this picture. The instructions on how to use this programme is rather simple. This is step by step on how we created the picture:

1. Select the picture we wanted to use.

2. Double Click the picture.

3. Change the picture to a Layer.

Layers allow you to move the image onto a different background. After this we then added the Black and White effect. As you can see down in the right bottom corner, the panel is indicated Layers and Paths, this allows us to use the layers to edit which layer comes first and which effect is on which image. We had a bit of experimenting with the effects we could use and found Neon Glow was very effective as a front cover feature for the design.

To apply the neon glow here are the steps we followed;

1. Filter

2.Artisitc/Neon Glow

3. In the new opened window adjust the settings of the Neon Glow.

With this setting we can choose how much we want when designing the picture with the glow. We get to change the brightness and the photo's original colour. However we did not use this too much as we are having our photo's Black and White.

After we had chosen the Neon Glow effect this is our outcome.  For the front CD Cover we have to make this picture fit the size requirments for the CD Cover/Inserts, so we have to move this to a blank CD Cover sized canvas/picture document and continue editing from there.

As you can see, on the right of the picture he arm looks deformed and it does not look very neat and tidy. So we used the cropping tool and removed this side of the picture. For the rest of the picture we used the cloning tool. This is the final picture;







New Photoshoot

So after looking at Adele's pictures we decided to change Chloes make up completly and do it simular to Adele.

These are the new pictures we now have to work with;