Monday, 28 March 2011

what have you learnt from your audience feedback?

I used facebook and posted up my video to see if people could work out what type of video it was if the video was played with the sound missing about 7 people commented and all believed that it was a rock video. People believed this due to the quick editting an range in shot types. People also picked this up from all the darkened shots that were being used.

Other things make it a lot more obvious like the use of guitars and instruments rather than other instruments associated with other styles.


Through doing this it helped to show me that I was hitting my demographic spot on and that my msic video was almot complete.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

When showing friends i found that people had different opinions to how it should be made which helped me realise that not everyone will be 100% happy inside your demographic, on the other hand i was also shown some things that helped me to better my video.



Ideas about how to cure the green line around people when using a green screen and about darkening shots were the main things that people were encouraging me to sort out. With my final draft when i showed people in my target demographic they were very pleased with a lot of the work that had gone into it.

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

When our 1st drafts of our media product and ancillary tasks were complete, we decided it was worth peer evaluating eachothers work to try and highlight which stage we thought eachother are at. I found this very helpful as i didnt pick up on some of things mentioned as when you are working on or editing footage you start to lose your judgment after a long time editing as your eyes grow board of watching the same thing again and again. When a fresh pair of eyes can have a look it showed me how my shots were too bright and needed some darkening and helped inform me of some timing errorswith some of the editting.


Without feedback like this i probably would have never noticed some of the things that were shown to me.

how effective is the combination of your main product and ancilary task?

My media products are very good at staying true to typical metal genre media. There are subtle links between all of the tasks that are usually involved within almost every style of musics media. Within this panel of the digipak there is the same orange guitar that is used in the Malice video, this is only a small thing that links the two pieces of media but it is effective as it gives a more obvious link when looking at the seperate pieces of media.


I believe that this helps to succesfully link the two pieces of media in a really obvious way.

how effective is the combination of the main product and ancillary task

The Combination of all of the tasks works very well. The darkness has been used in all of the tasks and a similar colour scheme has been kept throughout. It is easy to see that the 3 pieces match up and it looks like they are all part of a bands work not individual tasks. We used the same logo that we made in the corner of the two ancillary tasks to show that they are connected.


The music video has the same colours as the digipak and the poster when the greenscreen is being used.





Insert Finished fillm here

how did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages

Within the planning and construction we had many thoughts about what to do with the green screen. Many ideas where thrown around including one to add a scratchy image to the background


We then used photoshop and final cut together to come up with an animation that is suitable for the genre that this is created for.




Sunday, 27 March 2011

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

Within my research and evaluation i have typically used the following programs:

Blogger has been one of my main programs for almost every element of my research and planning as it has been the place that i have published all of my work. I have been able to use this site to write up about my work and share what i have learnt.




You tube has beeen a great help with my research as it has allowed me to watch many different music videos and see what conventions there are. It has been a help to me when looking for tutorials on how to do something in photoshop or final cut which is a great help when wanting to add effects etc. It has also helped me to post things up onto blogger by allowing me to embed clips into my posts. This has therefore allowed me to show snipits of my video in order to emphasize a point that i am making.



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

In the construction side of things the main media products that we used were: final Cut Pro was used in many ways when editing the video. For example the editing window allows me to chop up footage and piece together the video. It also allowed me to add effects to footage for example his ghost effect.





The Tripod and camera

Many of our shots have been taken involving the camera and the tripod. They have played an essential roll in creating our music video. The use of the tripod allows us to capture shots from a steady and still angle. Without the use of this a lot of our footage ideas would not have worked as effectivley. The camera has allowed us to capture our video which is the most essential part when constructing a music video, without footage there would be no video.
















Photshop CS5 was used the most within the ancillary task as it was the best for editting pictures.




We were able to add effects that were able to change a picture from this






With a little help from Photoshop



into this



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

When creating my music video editing in time with the music was essential as stereotypically metal videos are cut on the beat to emphasize the speed of a song. I used this stereotype and developed it when filming and editing the drummer. Taking footage from many different angles allowed me to change between many different shot types when editing. I did this using the blade tool and cutting my footage up in the window below. Using this allowed me to show the drummers fast movements to seem more exciting by speeding up the rate at which the shots change within the music video. It works to capture the audience and allow the viewer to appreciate the drummers skill.

Monday, 14 March 2011

in what ways does your media product use, challenge or develop conventions of a real media product?

When creating our digipak we decided to take some experimental pictures of snow and blood as the contrast between colours would have a effect, we also took some pictures whilst traveling as we thought the speed would be effective as with metal it is fast paced therefore a shot that captures speed I felt suited the genre. We experimented with as many different shots as possible to see what we could do to get the right shot to work in photoshop




We used the two shots described and put them into our digipak as they were themed with the album title in the right way and didnt look out of place on the digipak. The shots are typical for a lot of metal bands as lots of metal CD covers envelop gore and blood into there themes. This usually plays on the fact that a lot of people associate metal music as frightening as the singing style is so intense and different from normal popular music.


In what way does your media product challenge, develop or use conventions of a real media product?

When researching a Typical metal video it has came apparent that the cutting is all tightly closed in with the drummer. Therefore the faster the drummer is playing the faster cuts need to be.







When cutting fast i found that adding more effects to some shots made them stand out. For example one of the drum solos in the intro i added an earthquake effect which is used a lot in a traditional Metal music video. This effect is used to add more power to the way the drummer hits. I have used these ideas and put them directly into my music video therefore trying to appeal to my target demographic. The shot has also been darkened from the original as the lighting was to bright and the shots looked out of place when compared to the other shots in the video.


Ollies drum solo with effects

Monday, 6 December 2010

Digipak Draft

This is the draft for my digipak album that i have designed as a basic guidline to how my digipak will look

Advertisement Draft


This is a draft of the advertisement that i would use to promote the album that i would create

Shooting Schedule


These are the dates that we plan to film our different shots

Monday, 8 November 2010

Locations

We found that with this room the colour's were too vibrant and didn't suit the genre that we are performing
We wanted to use this room but we found that there was a limited amount of space and not much in the way of decent lighting.
This Is the room that we decided to use as it had the best amount of space to use and to change the layout of the band. The lighting is very good in this room and it was good to make the artist seem bright.

Sunday, 7 November 2010

Annotated lyrics


Email Verifacation


As a group we have established that it is important t make sure that the record company is happy with us using there music so we have decided to ask them if it is ok

Story Boards




Prop List


.This is a list of the props costumes and make up that we will be using on set whilst filming.

Artist imagery

I am aiming to make my artists look like stereotypical rock artist with long hair skinny jeans etc.
They need to have guitars and equipment that looks realistic to that of a professional band. The clothing should be that of dark colours to match the stereotypical listener of the style of music. we will represent them as energetic and powerful to enhance the music they are playing.

Song Choice

Avenged Sevenfold - Almost Easy
Genre - Metal
We have chosen this song because it is different and also there is an oppotunity for a story to be constructed from the lyrics

Technical Tutorials




Whilst working with my tutuors i have seen the advantage in working with a green screen and using programs like photoshop. It is helpful using the green screen as we can setup shots to be somewhere that would be hard to film. It is worth using when someone important is doing something as they can be shown to be in an idealistic area. Photoshop is a valuble thing to use as well as it is easy to design complicated covers. The program is adaptable to different designs which is very useful. After my work i feel that i am more confident in using a greenscreen and the final cut program also i have learnt more things in photoshop which i find is really helpful as i will be using the program to desing my cover of my album

Group Roles

Tom - Actor/ Editing
Hayley - Filming / Directing
Will - Filming / editing

Initial Ideas

Song Choice- Almost easy by Avenged sevenfold

Thoughts
The songs lyrics are about an argument or a break up between a couple, therefore i have planned to work around this. The story shall be about a man that has caused his girlfriend to hate him. we will show the main character as a drunk and a repulsive person. The story will be shown as the main character trying to win back the woman

Sunday, 26 September 2010

Audience Research





Record label research

















Warner Bros
Established- 1958 with no traceable origins in Berliner Gramophone or Columbia Phonography.

Related companies: Warner Music Group, Atlantic Records, Rhino Entertainment and Independent label group.

Epitaph Records
Established 1993 owned by Bret Gurewitz, Is known for taking on music in the rock genre from soft rock to Heavy metal.

Works in close relation with Adam Dutkiewicz a guitarist from killswitch engage (band) who has been managing and promoting bands for epitaph.

Metalbladerecords
Established 1982 by Brian Slagel who now owns metal blade that is one of the biggest metal scene record labels.

Owns big artists like As i lay dying and Amon Amath



Theory Three (Carol Vernalis)

Carol vernalis made a theory or an observation of music videos in relation to the shots and methods used in Hollywood style films.

She went on to highlight how certain film rules like the 180 degree rule is sometimes ignored in a music video but is always stuck to in a Film.

She showed there is a vast amount of different angles used in a music video when compared to a film as the continuity is not needed in the music video.

Her main point is that Continuity editing rules do not need to be applied when filming a music video.

Monday, 20 September 2010

Theory 2 (Andrew Goodwin)

Andrew Goodwin had 3 main theory's. These fall into three categories which are...

Illustration
Lyrics- the video illustrates the literal meaning of the lyrics
Band Image- Illustrates the artist in the way that the distributor wishes.
Music- adds meaning to the music by showing images in time with the beat of the music.

Dis juncture
Lyrics- Images do not appear to have any relevance to the story being shown.
Music- images are off beat and not in relation to the music
Band Image- is not shown or is shown in a way that they would not look normally

Amplification
Lyrics- a narrative or story is created in accordance to the lyrics
Music- Cuts can be off and on the beat to emphasize a certain point
Band Image- Band can take on a role within the video playing certain characters in the story they are creating

Theory one (bordwell and Thompson)

The first thought was that to make a good music video there should be rhythmic editing, this basically means that the video should be cut to the beat, meaning that shots should change in time with the music.


Spatial editing is something that is thought about which basically means that it is possible to edit without thinking about continuity. An artist can be shown in one place and then a totally different place without the viewer questioning it.


There is also graphic editing which envolves using pictoral elements in mis-en-scene and cinematography, this means using shots that are very illustrated shots.


Temporal editing means that when you are editing without any relation to time for example it could be daytime in one shot and then night in the next.

Sunday, 19 September 2010

Rock video (As Blood Runs Black)




This video is a low budget Rock video as there is no story line going along with this video. There are many close ups and medium shots used from a low angle, this is to give the viewer the illusion of seeing them on a stage. This is effective for the viewer as it keeps them aspiring to the musicians due to ther etalent.


The editing similar to that of hey there delilah has been made to make the viewer entertained by splitting up the screen to show a bunch of different shots. It gives more action than there really is.


The setting that has been chosen is very effective as later in the piece there is a lot of lighting effects used making the scene visually interesting, it has a certain appeal nearer the end due to this fact. The performers are dressed in pretty normal clothes and havent seemed to have linked themselves to any stereotype, they do not have long hair and statement making clothing on they all look pretty normal.

The Performance is a bit lacking in certain areas for example the lead guiatarist seems uneasy when headbangin in time with everyone else and doesnt look very easy with the style of movement. Other than that all performance is effective as the performers seem to really get into the music.

Pop Video Analysis



Cinematography


This video doesnt have many complicated shots used, it mostly consists of establishing shots and close ups of differrent areas, for example there is a close up of the singer with a guitar singing towards the camera. There are a few extreme close ups of things that are added into the boxs that the video is split up into.



Mise-en-scene


The people in the video are all dressed in costume of average people living a normal life, this is so that when mixed with the lyrics it is shown as a love story between two normal people. The setting for the video is in a city for the girl who is away from her lover and a plain house for the singer. This is to keep focus on the singer.



Editing


The editing is good as it makes a pretty boring story into an interesting watchable piece by the way of splitting up the shots into 3 seperate boxes with each box showing different things going on. This is effective as it makes the viewer want to watch the piece to see what is going on in the individual boxes. The use of different shots in each box makes it effective as there is more than just the one thing going on in the video making it more interesting.



Performance


As far as performance goes there is not that much going on except for the fact that the guitarist is performing the song that he has made. The woman just does a lot of waiting around and walking. There is one part where the singer sings to the camera as if it is his girlfriend, this is effective as it involves the audience.

Thursday, 16 September 2010

CD cover analysis (Horizons-Parkway drive)




The Parkway drive Album cover is in direct relation to the name of the album as it is the picture of a horizon which is the name of the album. The album is very simple when compared to other albums, this is good because there is not much being revealed to the viewer of the album cover meaning that someone will want to find out more about the music. Typical to the Metal genre the artist is not shown this is good because it means the audience will haveto either have to be more inquisitive or go to a gig to see what the artist looks like. The bands name is bigger than that of the album name so that it is obvious which band you are listening to.

Monday, 13 September 2010

CD Cover Analysis (Fortress)



Protest the hero have chosen to go with an abstract artwork that doesnt seem to have much link with there image but as a big link with there music as they are making abstract music. There album cover ahs there name at the bottom and then totally random images to plant a question i the viewers mind. The album artwork is very interesting but very hard to make sense of. This means that the album will generate an interest to people as they will be interested in finding out what the albu is about.