Evaluation Question 4

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

The technologies used for our coursework include Blogger and YouTube. Blogger is used as a way to present all of our work in one place in an easily understandable order. I find that Blogger makes it much easier for me to keep my work organized and makes it easier for me to know which pieces of work are completed. As I have used Blogger before on previous coursework, I already had an understanding of how it worked, meaning that I didn’t have to spend time getting to grips with how to used it. I was able to use Blogger to my best ability as the layout makes it very simple to know exactly where everything is. One of the most convenient things about Blogger is how easy it is to embed files from other sites such as YouTube meaning that everything can be in one place.

To design the digipak and magazine advert, I used Photoshop. After taking the photographs, with a Nikon DSLR camera, that would be used within our digipak, we put them into photoshop and altered some of the colours and added filters that we thought were relevant to assist in making our digipak and magazine advert tie in better with our music video. I already had prior knowledge of photoshop so took on most of the work in this area. The other members in my production group assisted in the decision making of what we wanted our digipak and magazine advert to look like.

When filming our music video, we used a tripod and Sony HD camera. This camera shoots footage in a high quality meaning that we could get the best possible result for our music video. The camera had the built in function of autofocus, but as a group we decided that we could get a much more accurate focus if we did this manually. This was very effective and we found that we could get a very crisp image. When filming the music video, we would all check the camera positioning and focus before pressing film to ensure that we were all happy with how it looked. We attempted to do a focus pull technique, but when it came to editing the footage, we decided that it didn’t fit with the video.

To edit our music video we began by looking into using Final Cut Express, but after many difficulties with our footage not importing, we decided that it would be best to at least make a start using iMovie. After we began the process of editing the footage using iMovie, we made the decision that we could do most of the thing that we wanted to include in our video on iMovie so decided against switching to Final Cut Express. To ensure that we got the best possible final result, we always referred back to our storyboard and shot list when filming and editing.

I decided to use Blogger to carry out my evaluation questions as it is the most convenient way of keeping all of the necessary information in a simple and easy to manage format.  

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From the feedback that we collected from our audience in the initial stages of production, we found that the majority of people asked liked the sped up shots that the used. They felt that it was visually very effective and also fit well with the chosen genre. As this feedback was collected in the very early stages of productions, we had a number of comments made about things that they felt we needed to change, such as some shots being too long and a few shadows in the background of shots.

Rough Cut 1


Audience Feedback

Good points:

• the speed up shots look good and fit the genre of the song
• the makeup looks good and works well
• the costume fits with the narrative of the video
• the camera is steady
• the effect used on the shot looks good
• the shots are well framed

Points to improve:

• more shots are the band are needed
• some shots are too long
• see some unintentional shadows in some clips
• music needs to be added
• add all clips to finish the video

Improvements we will be making to our next rough cut:

• To improve our music video we will film a large number of artist shots and more acting shots so we will have enough to finish the video
• we will also cut the length of some of the shots to keep the audience engaged in the video
• we will remove shots that do not work or have issues such as shadows and replace then with shots that will look good in their place
• we will also add music in the next stage of creating our music video

 Rough Cut 2

Audience Feedback

Good Points

• Lovely sped up shots.
• Good amount of cuts.
• Good guitar and drum shots.
• Good editing.
• like how the pace speeds up towards the end.
• like how it goes with the beat of the song.
• Locations fit the genre.
• Good angles of instruments.
• Creative editing.
• Good lip syncing.
• Editing matches the chaotic feeling.
• Flashing works well.
• Visuals to genre work perfectly together, definite style.
• Good use of different camera angles.
• The pace fit with the music.
• Costumes are well thought out.

Improvements

• Shadow moves across frame. We are going to re-edit this shot, we thought it looked good with the shadow but others thought it wasn't necessary.
• Some shots are too long. Once we have framed out the whole song we plan on editing some shots shorter and adding different new angles.
• First shot not relevant. We used the wrong part of the clip. We plan to change it and then see if people still find in irrelevant.
•  Lip syncing isn't in sync at the beginning. We need to cut the beginning of the shot where he breaths because that's what makes it seem out of sync.
• Some shots are darker the others. We plan on brightening the darker shots. But the band shots are intentionally brighter then the acting.
• A bit repetitive try a different location? We have another location planned and will hopefully be filming there before Rough Cut 3.

Evaluation Question 2

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

The themes used within our main product and ancillary texts link together directly from the continued use of similar colours and images. The band members are seen wearing the same costumes in the digipak images as in the video, this is a motif drawn from the bands stage costumes.

The most prominent aspect that links the music video, digipak and magazine advert is that the all include the image of the back of the straight jacket with 'I'm A Freak' cut into it. This is an iconic image that will be easily recognisable. It is the cover of the digipak so it makes sense that we would use this as the main aspect of the magazine advert as well. This visual is also the final shot of the music video meaning that the digipak and advert will be recognised from the video.

We decided that we would use the image of the lead singer (and only member who's face is shown in the video) holding the lens of the camera within the digipak. This is also another shot that is seen within the music video. The main reasoning behind wanting to use this image in the digipak is because in the image that shows the full band, you can only see his back, so this way the audience is able to see the band as a whole. The image of the band also allows the audience to connect the band members to the video even though they don't see their faces in the video. Since the bassist is wearing the same mask in the image as is seen in the backing vocal shots of music video.

The font used in the track listing is the same as the font that is used for the information on the magazine advert, the font used for the band name is the same every time is has been used to show consistency. We chose to use a different font for the information and tracklisting to the band name because we found that it was more legible for the areas with more text.

The filters used over the photos on the digipak and magazine advert give a similar effect to the 'old world' filter that we used in our music video. This allows the colours to be consistent throughout. We had to use a different location for filming the music video to that of the promotional images as we were unable to safely get the band and equipment inside. We didn't want to waste the photos as we were really happy with how they turned out so decided that they would be used within the digipak instead.


Digipak Design

CD Print Design

Magazine Advert


Evaluation Question 1

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

When creating our media product, we researched into the generic conventions used in real media texts from the same genre. This gave us a much greater understanding of what would be stereotypical for the audience to see within our product.

Our media product follows the generic conventions of our chosen genre from the way that we shot the footage to the themes used throughout the video and also included in our digipak and poster design.

We were inspired by the video for 'Asylum' by Disturbed as the themes used within this video are very similar to the initial thoughts that our chosen song gave us in relation to the music video. We felt that the motifs used within the video portrayed a very similar atmosphere to that by our chosen song.

We also noticed whilst analysing this and other videos in the metal genre was that they are often quite dark in colour and mainly use white light to give a colder feel.
Another generic convention of metal/rock music videos is that they use fast paced editing to give a chaotic feel.

These are some comparisons of shots taken from our music video and shots taken for existing real media texts.

 

From researching into the metal genre, we noticed that it is often much less about how the band members look than is seen in other genres such as pop. This is shown in a very literal sense in nu-metal band Slipknot's video for 'Before I Forget'. The use of very interesting camera angles means that even though you never see a full profile or head shot of the members, the video is still engaging to the audience. We took inspiration from this in our own music video by never showing the band members in the performance shots, the attention is entirely placed onto their instruments.

Below are some comparisons of performance shots from the video 'Before I Forget' and our own music video.

Another music video that followed a similar theme to ours through both lyrics and visuals is Avenged Sevenfold's 'Nightmare'. This video was a perfect example of how we wanted to combine a strong narrative with performance shots. This is also a convention that is commonly used within the metal genre. Fast paced editing that includes links between the music and visuals create a very effective atmosphere in a video and is used in most metal videos and we felt that this was the most important convention for us to follow when creating our music video product.

There were only a few actual shots that have been used as comparison against our own from this video, but the others were used as inspiration.

Music Video Final Cut

Final Magazine Advert

Final Digipak

Final digipak without (above) and with CD (below)