Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The feedback that my partner and I have been receiving throughout our project has been very productive. We have taken almost everything on board and have tried to please the majority of people that have participated in any presentation, questionnaires and other things that we have done and the ideas were very good.

Most of the feedback was very positive saying things like our work was very creative and fun. This is exactly what we wanted to hear and the people who have seen it really liked that fact that we used different forms of transport in our video. They also liked the fact that it was different. It isn’t something that is really seen in current music videos and the fact that we haven’t tried to copy videos that exist nowadays was something they applauded. They said that our editing was very good and they believed that the fact that we made sure that everything in the video matched the music with it being fast pace, cut to the beat, everything made sense and was in order, making it easy to understand and very entertaining to watch.

All of our audience really liked the way we used the titles and the fact that it was so consistent throughout the video with different variations of font and language. My partner and I made the decision to use these titles as we wanted to do something original and something that wasn’t common. This was also our way to making our audience want to keep watching and to keep them wondering what was going to come.

Humour was something me and my partner wanted to incorporate in our video and it ended up being one of the main parts. We wanted it to be fun and wanted our audience to enjoy our twist on a dubstep video. Everyone who had seen our video loved the fact that our character had so much determination. Waking up early, using all forms of transport roaming all over London in an attempt to get to some free chicken just to get there too late was genius.

Both of us were very happy with the feedback that we had been given, and we are especially happy with our finished product.

Evaluation Question 2

This is a link to my Prezi which is my response to this question.

 http://prezi.com/7l6vh5thpskf/untitled-prezi/

Evaluation Question 1

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

Frame One:

The location in this frame was taken from our music video and this scene was set in Marble arch. We believed that this would help us conform with the conventions of a dubstep video as these videos are not just set in one place and are often on the streets of London and this is exactly what we did. We did keep this convention in mind whilst filming and I believe this is why we decided to stick to just filming in London and this was a very easy decision as both my partner and I live in London. The cat that there are a lot of different memorable locations in London we wanted to use that to our advantage and the fact that this is such a big city which is quite busy and everything is always moving forward links to our video as loads of things are going on we show different aspects it should be seen as very exciting and entertaining for our audience.

Frame Two:

The costumes that we used were very casual and I believe that this did also conform to the conventions of a dubstep music videos as they are never really showcasing an artist as much as some pop videos or RnB videos bas the majority of the videos are narrative and don’t have the artist performing in it at all and is very laid back and relaxed. This is why we have young teenage boys wearing casual clothing as anything else would not have looked normal at all and would have subverted to the stereotype.

Frame 3:

We also used bikes and rollerblades for props as it is a typical seen for teenage boys to be using these things as forms of transport rather than getting in the back of their mums car. We believed that this would appeal to our target audience and it also conformed to our chosen genre. Many dubstep videos in the past have used these objects in there video such as Modestep and DJ Fresh.

Frame 4:

We used different camera skills and editing techniques throughout the video as it was something that would be more entertain to look at whilst showing the audience the story. We used techniques such as some point of view shots to give our audience a true sense of being in our characters shoe making the audience interact in a way. The way we edited our music video also conformed to the conventions of a music video as we made sure it was cut to the music at a fast pace and even sped it up when it come to certain parts of the song. This is something that my partner and have seen in many different videos whilst doing our research and this is the reason why we decided to use this effect. We used various camera angles and other techniques to try and make it as entertaining as possible. We know if we did do the opposite and attempt to make it so paced it wouldn’t have had the desired effect and would have been very boring and would not have been appealing to watch.

Frame 5:

The story line was based around the text that one of our characters had received from one of his friends; this is why we felt the need to include a close up of the phone. We made sure it was a text because this is a common thing that teenagers do and the fact that they are very sociable compared to other age groups this really did work in our favour. This is to show the beginning of this epic journey, trying to get this free before the shop closes with his friends. We did try to put some humour into the video at two point, one being when the song says “I can’t stop” and one of the actors has come to a complete stop and the other being when our main character gets to the shop it is closed. This story line does subvert to normal dubstep videos, however not all dubstep videos have a story line at all.

Frame 6:

This is an image of one of the techniques that we have used in our video. The technique that we have used was graphic match and we used this to keep our audience interested in what was on screen. There are many different techniques that are used in music videos and this is the main reason why we chose to do one as well. In most dubstep videos techniques are used to display distorted images however we didn’t need to use it for that reason so we decided so use something different. Never the less we still do conform to the conventions of a dubstep music video as not all dubstep videos are the same and there is no fixed technique to use.

Frame 7:

Another thing that we have used in our video is titles. This is the consistent words that you see appearing throughout the video and you even in different languages which separate the footage frequently. This has been done in quite a few videos before but I do not believe that it has be done in an dubstep videos (Haven’t been able to find any whiles doing me research) and for this reason I believe that we have subverted to this convention as it’s not a common thing to see in this genre. I like the fact that we did use these titles as it brings life and colour to our music video.

Frame 8:

This is an image of our main character running down the stairs. The fact that our music video was based on a dubstep track we tried to put as much conventions in it was possible, this is why we decided to play with the time quite a bit. The fact that everything we did had to be cut at a fast pace we were able to take certain parts of our footage and rewind some parts to give variation so the audience were able to keep up and get a chance analyse what is going on.
We also used transitions where made throughout our video to show passing of time or even to hide little mistakes that were made.

Frame 9:

The characters in our music video are presented as your average teenager boys that make their way through London. They are not seen as trouble makers, not wearing black hoodies, they are not related to anything form of crime nor doing anything bad which is something  dubstep videos like to include as some sort of conflict. For this reason I believe that we have not conformed to the conventions in this way.

 

Evaluation Question 4

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

My partner and I have used many different forms of media technology throughout this course and have used them to our advantage in various ways

Youtube

We used YouTube to do our music video research. The fact that YouTube is a video sharing website we were able to find a range of different music videos at analyse from many different genres. We were also able to view their results and look at the ratings and comments that they had received. This allowed us to see if the majority of views no matter what age liked the video or not and this is how we came to the conclusion that a slightly humorous video had more views and/or likes, depending on the content. This was a very helpful website for us to use as is helped us see the conventions of music videos for all the different genres and we were able to pinpoint what conventions that we should used in ours.

Not only did this website help us with our research but it also provided the tutorials we needed to produce our digipak, making our Photoshop experience a lot simpler when we tried to make different effects.

We even uploaded our finished video to this website to showcase our work to get feedback.

Premier Pro

 This was a very used full program as this is where we did all our editing. As we had used this for our AS project it was a lot easier for us to use. We were able to play around with it a lot more as it wasn’t just a story we were trying to tell there were different elements to it for example, with a music video we had to sync the song with the actual video, cut to the beat and edit the chips in time with the pace. We also used the program to do the different coloured titles in our video. There were a lot of different effects that we could use on our footage and this is what makes it such a good piece of software.

Photoshop

This was the most difficulty media technology that I had used and I really did struggle. However my partner and I did manage to achieve quite a lot with our digipak as well as our advert. Without using YouTube we would have had quite a basic final piece as our knowledge was very limited even though we did use this program for our AS course.

Survey monkey

Survey monkey is the website we used to get our research. It’s a website which allows you to create questionnaires and allows people to fill them out online; making it very easy to access, so any and everyone could get to it, it also made collecting the results very quick and easy and both my partner and I could collect the results no matter where we were, making our feedback a lot easier to get.

Blogger

This is the website I used throughout my whole project to publish the majority of the research that I had done and any other information that was necessary. This was really good as we were able to incorporate a wide range of media on it was we could upload videos, pictures, links and quite a lot of other things.

Twitter Facebook

Twitter Facebook are online social networking services. These are the two that I had used to gain awareness of our questionnaires and everything else. I wanted to get everyone we could to participate in our work to get a real feel for what everyone expected in a music video especially as the majority of people that are on these social sites would have been our

target audience anyway.

QuickTime

This was what we transferred our finished video to so that it was in a format that we could upload onto youtube.

Prezi

Prezi is a bit like survey monkey in a way. The site allows you to create presentations in a unique way which is very different to a PowerPoint presentation and a lot more entertaining for the views.

Camera

We used a Sony handheld video camera to do all our filming and I believe this was the easiest way for us to get the footage we need for our music video. The camera that we had used had quite a lot of memory space on it and even had a playback feature which was very helpful as we would see whether we had to re-film anything there and then without having to upload it to a computer to realise anything, so this in all saved valuable time. The fact that it was very compact it made it very easy to manoeuvre especially with the shot we wanted to get. This devise was very simple to use so we didn’t have any problems at all. On top of all that the quality was quite good so it was a nice experience.

Our Digipak

My partner and I had decided to make some changes to the front cover of our digipak for quite a few reasons. We realised that it was very challenging to make our digipak look appealing to our target audience so we changed it up so that it was very eye catching.

This was one of our original covers.



Final Advert Design

My Photoshop Experience

I only have one word to describe my experience with this software and that word is TERRIBLE!!!

Never felt so incompetent with a computer program in my life. Forever making mistakes which can't even be undone - you can only press the undo button ONCE - unless you delete the layer which was utterly frustrating, especially if your not one to remember to make these multiple layers every couple seconds. To call the steps you make "baby steps" is a total understatement! Each time you do something new you have to make a new layer which feels so stupid because your getting nowhere fast, however if you do make these layers I guarantee you will get lost in that web that you create. There will come a point where you will forget which layer is which and struggle to get any further than you started off with making this process long and tiring just sitting there staring at a computer screen for a good couple of hours and having nothing to show for it. I would call this a mix between a memory game and a puzzle all mainly based on trial and error which is something that not all people like doing so often. Trial and error requires patience and it is not fun when your only allowed to make one mistake at any given time. This is the most difficult, tedious and just out right faulted program, no words can actually describe my hatred for this over priced product!

The time and effort I have spent on this idiotic program makes me want to cry and which hurts the most is that this is the second year I am using it. Believe it or not the first time I used this Adobe Photoshop was a lot worse.

Fortunately I was about to do a lot better this time round than my previous attempt but I am still not satisfied with what I have produced even though I know this is the best I am going to be able to do. I do not wish to mess it up again (Yes, it has happened before) so I will settle for what I have.

I am not sure if I am just not happy with my work because I have seen what other people are about to create on Photoshop or what I have made is genuinely rubbish

As you can tell I had VERY limited knowledge on how to use Photoshop and had to search through many different tutorials just to do the simplest of tasks. Eventually I was able to find some very helpful tutorials which was able to guide me through the long winded process and allowed me to get something along the lines of what me and my partner has draw in our plans.

I encounter many different problems along the way and now believe I have made so many different mistakes along the way that I know what buttons to avoid, things I shouldn't try on certain images and basically what not to do and there are many different things on my list.

Not happy

What is the purpose of a digipak?

Digipak is a form of packaging for any type of CD, DVD or Blu-ray disc; the outside of the digipak is usually made from paperboard/cardboard/card stock whilst the inside is a standard plastic, shaped in a way that would hold a CD that is attached to the card that looks like the image below.

 This is a typical set up for a six panel digipak:

 



An example of a real six panel 

The whole purpose of a Digipak is to attract I believe. Reflects the type of music that is on the album/single.

I have been doing research on the digipaks that are in the same genre as ours and I have realised that There are barely any digipaks out there. The only reason I could think of is that the way we consume media is different now and  the fact that dub step is a fairly now music group this may be the reason.

Below is a Chase and Status Single cover.

This is relevant as it has a clear colour scheme and clearly states the name an d this is something I would like to incorperate in my digipak

Editing Techniques

We are planning of using quite a few different editing techniques in our music video. One example of the editing technique we will use would be match on action which helps with the continuation of the clip. This is done by cutting to another clip just as one has finished which is in the same sequence of events making the movement and shot seem fluid and masking the cut. This would be explained better in the following clip.

Graphic match is another technique that we will be using. This is when you cut from one shot to another with something like an object that has correspond image (the objects having a similar shape). For example, my partner and I are hoping to achieve this why using the round circle shape of a bikes wheel and a watch/clock. The picture below if from the film Psycho which is quite a good example.

The shape of the plug whole has a similar/same shape as the iris in the eye.

Our first day of Shooting

Our first day of filming was substantially better than our filming experience with our previous project. I believe that it went very well and both my partner and I were pleased with the outcome. We were able to film everything we had planned within a couple hours. However, due to an unfortunate event that had occurred only a couple days before our scheduled filming we had to adapt to the situation by changing our original plan. Our arrangement prior to the incident was to have bikes in our video, this idea was short lived due to the fact that not one bike was stolen but two!!! This left the both of us struggling to come up with a new idea in such a limited amount of time as we had to start filming as soon as possible. We decided to use roller blades for our main character however this did make some parts of our filming quite tricky as we were trying to incorporate some tracking shots of our actors on their bikes but it was quite hard for my partner and I to film alongside them. My partner did try clinging onto one of our actors bikes on his roller blades whilst filming the other bike.

We did plan this in advance however we thought it was going to be a lot easier than it was. After a few attempts my partner did get it just right and got us pretty good footage that was exactly what we needed.

Although we checked the weather before we filmed we weren’t really prepared for the on and off rain and hail stone throughout the day. This annoyingly kept changing the lighting while we were in the park and we knew this would make editing quite difficult for us from then. We did continue to film and decided keep all the footage and use most of it especially the parts that looked the same.

Filming the match on action sections wasn't hard at all as we were able to use a tripod the majority of the time. Overall I believe the day went amazingly well as we were able to film quite a lot with hardly any problems.

Additional information

Costume

The costumes that would be worn would be of the casual sort as this is what is commonly found in a typical dubstep/ drum and bass video.

Location

There is no typical set location that dubstep/ drum and bass however in most of these videos the scene changes a lot, most start off indoors or in a house of some kind and are based on the streets of London. For example Chase and Status - Let you go (Left) and Chase and Status - Time (Below). In videos like this there is sense of constantly moving forward. The typical functions of a dubstep video is for it to be a narrative piece and have the video make a visual story as this type of music doesn't really have that much lyrics to it (depending on the artist) or at times there could be performance where you see the artist at a venue etc. Mainly because of these reasons we believe that this is a perfect opportunity for us to use various locations in London throughout the video, along the way our main character will be picking up his friends and would be roaming the streets of London trying to get as much of them as possible to get this "free chicken". I believe that the fact that we would have a lot of different locations we should be able to recreate the sense of a dubstep video.

We used locations such as my partners home and a few places in London such as Marble Arch and Richmond park, images below.

Marble Arch

Richmond Park

Props and lighting

In our video the main prop we have is the bikes and the roller blades. We do refer to a clock/watch quite often as its supposed to be a race against time so this comes up quite a few times as well as a few other objects however they are not as significant. All these objects are easy to obtain as these are just house hold objects etc. If anything does go wrong in one way or another we can always compromise with something else which would be just as effective. For example, a bike got stole and we replaced it with roller blades.

The lighting shouldn't be a problem as we would be filming during daylight and the majority of our video is outdoors however our only obstacle would be the weather and we he obvious check this in advance which we have written on our breakdown sheets.

The beginning of our music video is indoors and for this we would use windows and actual lights but we would be using as much natural light as possible.

At the end of our video we are filming while its dark but it would be very well lit as it is quite a busy area.

Breakdown sheets for our music video

Our animatic

Today my partner and I presented our animatic to the class. This is where we got the opportunity to show our peers our ideas of the music video that we have to produce. We got very good feedback from all of them and we are planning of using their ideas to our advantage.

One of the ideas that was suggested was that we not only play the clip in its forward motion but then reverse the same section so we would get an effect that has been used in many dub step videos in the passed such as DJ fresh – Louder.

The fact that with this type of music we are able to play with the time, we should use that as much as possible.

More close ups were mentioned, to show the riders determination and to add more drama in a sense. This was a very good idea and I think this is something my partner and I will definitely look into as this feedback was very useful

Another thing that was suggested was that we make it clear from the beginning that it is a race against time and that we should include shots of the shop or a poster advertising the free food near the start of the video so everyone is on the same page and it would make it a lot easier to follow.
They liked the fact that we use so many different locations in the video however there was a fear that we may not be able to fit all our footage into his video. But then again, the fact that we would be able to speed things up at times everything should be fine. There were some suggestions that we film some of the keys locations such as marble arch at night so we could get the full beauty of the place to make it more interesting to look at.

Other feedback we got is that some of the footage was too long, however when we did explain it everything

The Results To Our Survey

100% of our responses came back from 16-20 year old. 50% of the people why took the survey were female and other 50% were male. This made our analysis a lot easier knowing that we had an equal ratio between the two and would be able to see what the majority preferred without thinking our results would have been different if we had more girl.

Below are all the results we received

Age group?

Genre

What type of music genre do you listen to?

Do you watch music videos?

 What do you like to see in your music videos?

How do you watch your music videos?

Do you like bright colours or a more gritty feel?

Do you like fast paced action music videos?

Do you like to see the artist perform?

Do you like videos set in London?

The results will help us to decide what we should do for your music video. From the information we received my partner and I are looking to do something that is based in different locations in London that has quite a bit of action and this is just by looking at the answers or question 8 and 10

Music Video Research

In class we watched multiple music videos that may help us out with getting ideas for our music video. We watched many different genres of music videos, the music videos being a selection of award winning videos from the list of MTV Music Awards of 2011.

Video of the year being,  Katy Perry - Firework

This video had CGI (computer generated images) of the fireworks coming out of different individuals that are coming out of their “shells” and being bold showing that everyone has a firework inside obviously relating to the lyrics of the song which made it very entertaining to watch. The video also had a nice blend of it being a performance as well as a narrative piece.

The multiple locations that were presented gave the audience a lot to look at and they did many establishing shots to show that, so for whoever is looking at it can never get bored. There was a good mix of focal points as we had the opportunity to focus on different things at different times. Above all that the pace of the video matched the tempo of the music

I believe this was a very good video for us to look at as we are planning to have multiple locations in our video. We believe that this video also gave us ideas on how we could present all the different locations to our audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGJuMBdaqIw

Nicky Minaj - Super bass

This video gave you a lot to look at with all the interesting costumes and the costume changes. There was also some form of chorography as there was some dance sequences all the way through the clips. There was a great feel of energy presented in this video which seemed to reflect the artist’s personality and for that reason I believe that the director did showcase the artist very well as he/she made sure she was in the middle at all times and her back up dancers were dressed exactly the same so give the illusion that there were multiple copies of her. There was a constant theme of time throughout the whole video which would attract the attention of young girls which would have expanded there audience to appeal to a wider range. I believe that this video did appeal more to females that male due to the fact that the video had the pink them and multiple shots of half dressed men. The theme of partying was also there as the also had a scene in this video where there was black lights where everything white etc. would be almost like a glow in the dark effect and this seen also had some thing almost like a dance as well. The fact that it was a catchy song the dances where easy enough to get you doing it as well making it even more entertaining that just sitting and watching. This video wasn’t just a performance piece but it also had narrative parts in there too.

There was a fast pace almost the whole time but it changed when the song changed pace, so they both matched each other. There was also some slow motion in some parts which made it more interesting to watch.

This video was a good one to watch as I think we would be able to play with the speed of the footage we get and add some slow motion in some parts, so hopefully we can get the chance to do it properly without it looking odd. But I believe my partner and I would like to make our video as entertaining as possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JipHEz53sU

Adele – Rolling in the deep

This is a very beautiful and artistic piece that won three different awards. This is quite a slow piece and they did a lot with it which I believe is what made every bit of it amazing. There wasn’t many people in this video, there was about three in total. I believe that this video did showcase the artist very well as she was the only person in the video that you could see properly and you got to see every angle of her even though she didn’t move due to the different shots. There was a dancer dressed all in black in white powder I think and one man playing the drums in the dark underneath a staircase but they didn’t really have an identity. Everything in this video was done for a reason which I believe was done very well. This unique piece had many scenes of objects being thrown, shook, or moved to the beat which is part of the lyrics.

Everything in this video made the audience feel some sort of compassion towards her as she seemed to be hurt really badly but this man that she’s singing about. I believe this may be the reason why the male drummer was placed in the dark in the corner as if he’s head was down in shame for what he had done, the light only coming on, on the beat to show his presence only near the chorus of the song. The dancer dancing in black throughout the video, shots been slowed down at some parts so you could see how elegant the moves where and also did represent the pain that the artist felt. Every time the dancers prop was up in the air was mainly where the chorus was about to start so almost represent the peak. Throughout the dance the powder made it harder for the audience to see the dancer as if to represent how difficult the man in the artist’s life was to figure out and to understand. The way how this dancer was dancing was almost like a catharsis (a release of emotion) which was incredible to watch.

The location did match the mood as this song was about pain and heartbreak and she was in an empty room alone. There were plates and other porcelain items being thrown and broken to the beat which also represented the anger that she had. The lighting was good as it was a little dim and gave us a feel for how she felt.

This was quite a dramatic piece that was every entertaining to watch. I believe it was a good video to watch as it did give us insight to how different camera shots and angles can make something so simple look so interesting. It also showed us how we could change the pace for certain parts of the song  and how lighting can really set the mood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYEDA3JcQqw

Foo fighters - Walk

This was both a narrative and performance piece. This was a highly entertaining piece as the director made it very humorous by adding comedy throughout the video not only by their actions but through there costumes etc. The location was changed multiple times as the main character (also being the band leader) was continuously ‘walking’ which reflected the title of the song. In the video you get to see the different band members popping up as different characters. For example the restaurant worker.

There were a lot of different camera shots and editing techniques, such as eye line matches, which made it at lot more fun to watch as you got to see his life as he sees it. At the end is where he reaches his destination with his band members and sings the chorus for the last time.

Where he unfortunately gets tasered by the police, as he has been causing trouble everywhere and while this is happening his band members laughed. and we gett good close ups on him which makes it more entertaining.

I think that this was a good video to watch as it had a good ending to it and it didn’t just come to an abrupt stop. I believe that me and my partner could makes our video entertaining by adding some comedy to it however this would be something we would have to look into.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PkcfQtibmU

Brittney Spears - Til the world ends

 This video, like Nicki Minaj’s Super Bass really showcased the artist very well as there was a couple scenes where everyone is wearing black leather material with an edgy look except the artist which was wearing a red leotard which she is well known for wearing.

Not only were the costume changes entertaining but there was a lot of chorography which reflected the song lyrics ‘dancing til the world ends’.

Like Katy Perry’s Fireworks, this music video also has CGI.