Evaluation - Part five.

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

Evaluation - Part four.

Evaluation - Part four, What did you learn from your audience feedback?

Evaluation - Part three.

Evaluation - Part three, How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

My partner and I believe the way we combined our main product (Music video) and ancillary texts (magazine advert and digipak) was very effective. 


Representation of the artists-
As we used the images that were taken whilst filming for our digipak and also our magazine advert, there was to be a clear link between all three products, also making the representation of the band throughout not difficult. We did not decided to use these images until we had taken them during the filming process. When we were preparing to film, we decided to have the band wearing certain clothes, which would give a stereotypical image and a indie feel to the band, these items of clothing consisted of; checkered shirts, skinny jeans and converses and also Dr Martens which are seen in our digipak, representing them as an indie band through style. This also mixed in with the branding, we had an original idea to brand the band as a young band with also a lot of passion about their lyrics and music, and we believe we managed to do this throughout all our products. To connote that the band had depth and also believed in what they were singing we decided to use natural lighting. We filmed in Hainault Forest, on a windy yet sunny day, we used the lighting to our advantage to create a hopeful personality. The narrative in the music video connotes the band to be a caring band which cares about situations like abuse and bulling and wants to help overturn it.  

House style/branding-

 We used images from our filming for both our digipak and magazine advert. We felt this would help connect all three texts and give the audience something to connect all three also, for example; whilst in a record shop. The mise-en-scene was used to show the style of the band, using the forest as a main location the attempt was to show a calm side of the band to contrast against the emotional narrative in the video. The colour pallet we used; oranges and greens, was to represent a very autumnal feel to the band connoting how raw yet simple and calm they are, this was spread across all three products by using the same colours on all of them, an example of this would be the green's in the trees. The style of the band being playful and almost child like show in the pictures on both the ancillary products, was carried across throughout all three of the products, this we believed would draw our audience as a way of them being able to relate to the band.

Synergy-
My partner and I thought there was something more we could do to combine all three of our products. We decided to continue our idea of using Samaritans and having the combination of a charity. We believed this would connote the calm and reflective tone and also serious themes that the band want to help overcome. Through both the ancillary products the Samaritan logo was added, also the the digipak my partner and I included a thank you message to inform the readers about what Samaritans is and what they do. We believed that using the charity would help add synergy to the text and express the themes in which the video connotes.

Mode of address-

In our video we wanted to connect with our audience, we did this through several different things. By using different body language throughout, tense body language during the narrative scenes and relaxed and playful during the performance scenes. We then wanted to use the tone of the video to appeal and connect to our audience, by using two different moods, happy and sad, this allows us to address our audience even if their in a angry mood. By using mainly younger actors we were able to relate more to our target audience and by using younger people in the band it was able to be shown in the ancillary products. The bands body language throughout being playful and calm and almost childlike was spread across all three products through the pictures of the band playing.

Themes-

The themes used throughout our music video were mainly based on domestic abuse and bullying. These themes were then contrasted with the band having fun and in a relaxed environment. This was then shown in the ancillary products where the main images are of the band throwing leaves and having fun. The fact we were focusing on such an sensitive subject and using it as a theme we didn't want to make the whole video sad and then continue that with our ancillary products and by using these playful images we managed to create a balance. The theme of the band being calm, carefree and childlike was shown through the pictures used on both the ancillary products and also the performance section in the video.

Evaluation - Part two.

Evaluation - Part two, In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products'.

During this video my partner and I forgot to mention how we have taken inspiration from another video of the song Stole by Kelly Rowland. 

The inspiration we took from this was the use to close-ups in the narrative performance, using these we believe helped connote the feeling and emotion of the performance. Also the fact we have used only mainly close-ups in the narrative section goes against the typical music video where the tone is sad, you often see many close-ups of the singers showing emotion, yet we wanted all the emotion to come from only the narrative section and the performance section to be childlike, simple and calm. 

Evaluation - Part one.

Part one the brief-

For our media products we were working towards the brief. 'Promotional package for the realise of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following options'. The choices we made were, 'digipak for album release' and 'magazine advertisement for digipak'. Our band was 50 Leaves, five men from Manchester who formed the band in 2007. This was my choice and my partner and I both agreed that we could develop our ideas more with their song 'Man on Fire' than what we may have for her song. What attracted me initially was the song was the slow pace and how it drew me in, I believed it would be able to draw a audience in as well. We both thought this song would be perfect for a video based on bullying and domestic violence, to get a point across to the viewer as the lyrics are very meaningful for example; 'Who's gonna save you'. Finding them on unsigned.com we knew that we would be able to seek permission if we tried, we therefore emailed them to gain permission to use their song. The genre of this band is mainly indie mixed with a  hint of folk music, this was to be looked at when brainstorming ideas of where to film.

Production - Reflection week 14.

Reflection week 14 -

This week has been a week full of deadlines, which my partner and I had to work to the best of our ability in order to get all of our products complete. Firstly we had to work towards the deadline for our music video. Staying back late at school we managed to get it all completed including the transitions at the points we liked them, all the shots zoomed in where we liked them and everything to our taste.

 After this video was complete we decided to get working on our other products which consisted of a Digipak and a Magazine advert, which would be advertising the song 'Man on Fire'. My partner and I conducted some more research into magazine adverts, to see what things we could included to make our product seem more like a real magazine advert. After this we worked all through our lessons to try and meet our deadline. 
Adding certain things like the iTunes sign and the Samaritans to link our products to our music video. We also added the Samaritans logo on to our digipak and included them in the 'Thank you' from the band which is shown on the digipak. We worked on the tracking list and the information that was to be laced on back of our digipak so it looked like it was in the correct place and we liked it.
We also worked on the CD's that were going to be included in the digipak one being a CD and one being a DVD with extra information and footage. We chose these colours as they went well with the colour theme of the digipak and magazine advert. Then we produced the final version of our digipak. 
Overall my partner and I are really please with the outcome of our digipak and believe that our hard work that has been put into it will help us towards the grade we will be happy with. 
We also produced the final version of our magazine advert. Working on this we moved the text around so it was not in a block in the middle of the page and moved it to the side where it seemed to be more fitting and was also easier to read as the light was not in the way. We also added a small darker box down the bottom of the page to make all the text stand out more. Working on the magazine advert we were pleased overall and have decided we are happy and believe that it would work well in a magazine and would stand out.
Next week -
Next week my partner and I will start our evaluation on our music videos and products. This is the main thing we will be focusing on this week as we need to get it completed and also we have no more products to complete.

Production - Final edit of our Magazine advert.

Final edit of our Magazine advert -

Production - Final edit of digipak, individual shots.

Production - Final edit of digipak individual shots.

To make it clear which park of my digipak is which I have cut it down into each part. These are what each image is;

        

The front cover of the digipak. ->

<- The back of the digipak.

<- Each section where the disks will be kept. ->

<- The middle sections of the digipak. ->

Production - Final edit of our Digipak.

Final edit of our Digipak -

Production - More research into magazine adverts.

More research into magazine adverts -

My partner and I have been looking into other bands magazine adverts and certain things which are included in many that we may need to include into ours.

This magazine advert by 30 Seconds to mars for their album 'This is War' has may of the thing that we have included in our advert. The picture on theirs is simple compared to ours as they have opted to just use the album cover and we have used an image of our band. I have noticed that they included what live covers the band have done and this is something my partner and I will take into consideration when making our final edit of our magazine advert as this is something which may make our audience more intrigued to purchase our product.

They also have a dvd included which is something my partner and I are includeing in our digipak, therefore we need to have text on our magazine advert which makes this clear to our audience. This advert from Green Day, inculded some aspects that I would like to included in our magazine advert. They have discussed how hits are included and just the use of the words 'Hits' made me more intrested in the product. I will look at how i word certain things in my agazine advert and try to use words which we draw the audience in more.

Production - 'Man on Fire' final edit.

'Man on Fire' final edit-

Production - Reflection week 13

Reflection week 13 -

This week my partner and I have been working towards our deadline which is for our music video to be completed by Tuesday the 6th of December. We both believe we are on track to meet this deadline and we have been working extra hard to get our video to the stranded we would like it to be at. Staying behind during lunch times and working to the best of our ability during lessons we have managed to complete all the cutting of the shots and have placed the shots in the order we would like them to be in. We have been adding effects in our video to make the transitions flow and make the video as a whole smoother. 

My partner and I both had an idea in which we decided we would like to link the video to a charity named the Samaritans. As we want our video to focus mainly on the narrative side and as that is about abuse at home and bullying we have decided to join up with the charity and add a shot at the end of the video with the number and slogan of the Samaritans so people may watch the video and if they are suffering from problems they may contact the charity. We looked at two different images one where we included a picture and one where we didn't and then decided that the image without a picture was more powerful as the number and slogan stands out more. We discussed this in a post about editing our text.

My partner and I have also started adding the Samaritans to the thank you text which will be on the digipak middle page. Adding this we believe it will have more of a personal message to the charity.

Next week -

Next week my partner and I are working towards two deadlines. On deadline is on Tuesday the 6th and this is the deadline for our music video and the next is on Friday the 9th and this deadline is for our magazine advert and also our digipak. We will therefore be working extra hard to get all of our products completed.

Production - Editing our texts.

Editing our texts -

Today my partner and I had some spare time and in this time we decided to do some media work and try and get ahead so we will not be rushing days before the deadline. As our music video deadline has been moved to Tuesday and our magazine advert and digipak deadline is on Friday we have decided to work on both. As we have been mainly working on our video for the past few weeks we decided to look at all our of texts and see what we needed to change or add to them and what aspects we liked and wanted to keep. We are both happy with our final digipak design, although we may change some images around to make it less focused on leaves etc.. However we have now decided that we would like

 to team up with the Samaritans, and that we needed to include the Samaritans into all our our three products. For example adding a small note from the band and production company thanking the Samaritans.

We have also been changing around our time line for our music video to make the song fit and also to make the way the singing moves his lips to the actual song. An example of how we had to change the video would be where we had an electric guitarist at the beginning of the video yet the electric guitar was not heard until around a minuet into the video. This meant cutting shots and moving pieces around but we eventually fixed it so it looks as if the guitarist is not in the video until the electric guitar comes in.

1

As we wanted to team up with a charity as we wanted to put our message in the narrative section of the video across strongly, we wanted to include the Samaritans phone number, logo and message at the end of the video so people would know the video links in and also that if they are suffering from any of the troubles show in the video they can contact someone. We have used Fireworks to create a few different designs for this and at the end we asked what people thought of the designs and which would look more appealing at the end of the video.
For image 1:
People said that it had a strong effect on its own and that it may be very simple but it gets its point across right away. Also that the colours work well together and using the slogan makes it seem more authentic.

2

From image 2:

People said they liked how we had included the image from the video and also added a merge effect as it goes well with the effects we have included in our video. They also stated how the image seems ad if it would also look good on a poster for the Samaritans charity.

As both feedbacks were reasonably good we decided to have a look and see which would look the best on our music video towards the end, we have decided to sway more to the idea of image number 1 as it is more serious and plain. Yet this idea may change on the final stage of our editing.

Production - Reflection week 12

 Reflection week 12 -

This week my partner and I have been working on the editing of our video as our deadline is upcoming. We have filmed some extra scenes of our narrative section of our video involving the part of the narrative section where, our main character (Elise Phillips) is running to her room after her father had been shouting etc. and she rips the paper off the wall and is pacing. We believed that we needed to shot these shots as the narrative we had already filmed did not match and there were certain parts where we needed extra shots.
We are also reaching the final stage of our editing process as our dead line is in around a weeks time. We have been discussing with our teacher and have added a dream like effect on all of the shots where the band is performing, and we have also changed the start of the video as we realised the electric guitar does not come in till around 1 minuet of the song. This has taken time and is still being worked on as we have to adjust all the singing to the song. We have also been adding certain fades and transactions/effects between the shots, we have included an Additive dissolve, a Cross dissolve and also a Non-additive dissolve. 

My partner and I have been talking about how we may ensure that our music video will attract our target audience through both our editing style and how the band is being portrayed through the video, for example which clothes we have them wearing. We also like the idea of using a montage in our video of different images mixing both the band and the narrative section together. We will continue to look at this next week.

A final thing we have decided is that we would love to include some synergy in our music video mixing the knowledge we learnt last year to make our video even better. We are aiming towards a young audience and our protagonist in our video is a victim and we would like to incorporate the Samaritans, which is a charity which helps people in distress, into out music video.

Next week -

Next week my partner and I have decided to continue with out editing and make sure our video is to our standard and also other peoples. We have decided to stay late one night and make sure all of our work is completed so we do not have to worry about running our of time and also we can dedicate around 2 hours of our time to getting it finished in one hit.

Production - Montage in the music video.

Montage in the music video - 

My partner and I have been thinking about ways we can make our music video more young and contemporary. We think that one way we could do this by creating a montage.

Here are the kind of video shots we would use in our montage put in to pictures:

Production - Charity synergy in the music video.

Charity synergy in the music video -

My partner and I have been discussing ideas of how to make our music video look realistic and fit music video conventions.

In our initial edit of our music video the narrative scenes are are prominent and frequent than the performance scenes. Although my partner and I know that, as the band is up coming, we need to make sure that they stand out in their videos, the song we are creating a music video for has quite a sad, lonely tone and we feel that we could work together with different companies to give the song a true meaning. Therefore, we feel that we would like to make sure that the narrative scenes stand out more, for example having several close-ups of our main characters face, than the performance scenes so that the narrative stays in our audiences head. Also, we are only creating one song from the bands album and so if we were able to create several music videos for the band we would ensure that the rest of the videos we produced concentrated on the band and the feel of the band.

Samaritans-

As the protagonist in the narrative is a victim of bullying and child abuse, we feel that it may be a good idea to advertise a charity that 'aims to provide emotional support to anyone in distress.' Particular as our target audience is teenagers, which are one of the highest age groups to be at risk of suicide.

Similar to X factor's charity single, but a bit less dramatic

Text- 

We would like Samaritans to only really appear in our music video as they will only really be working with them for one song and the other songs will concentrate on the band. Therefore, they most likely will not appear on either our digipak or magazine advert. Although, we may include them in the message on the inside of our digipak.

Why?-

We have decided to do this because my partner and I are both teenagers so the narrative is quite close to our hearts i would say. Also, as we have made our narrative most prominent, we feel that we should give an explanation for this and working together with a charity, we think, helps give an explanation.

My partner and I are in the early stages of discussing this idea and will discuss this some more in our next meeting to see if it will work.

Production - Peer feedback for music video.

Peer feedback for music video - 

Filming - Strengths and weaknesses:

(Framing, range of movement, creating meaning):

- The framing and almost all movement is perfect!
- Could use a few more shots.
-Shot 00.53.10 is really nice.
- Two narratives blend well.
- I like the shot at the beginning with the iPod.
- I really like the shot of the sun shining on the singers in the forest.
- I like the high angle used of Elise (main character) in the toilets.

Summary of filming feedback:

Most of the feedback from this section was positive and my partner and I will make sure to add more shots as we also feel that we need more shots in our video to make sure it fits the conventions of a music video and also to fit the length of the song.

Suggestions of improvement for filming:
- Camera kept steady all the way through the video.
- Need some more close-ups.
- More close-ups of Elise's (main character's) face to show her expressions.

- This you need more shots of them singing from different angles.
- Have a side angle shot of Elise (main character) crying in the toilets.

Summary of improvements for filming:

Mostly our suggested improvements for the filming would be to add more close-ups and to add a bigger variety of shots which we have taken on board and will try to do this when re filming.

Editing - Strengths and weaknesses:
(Pace, cutting to the beat, lip-syncing, transitions/effect)

- Pacing and cutting to the beat are extraordinary!

- Good soft fades.

- 00.11 had a beautiful fade.

- Lip syncing is at points a little off, but this may be due to the editing being incomplete.
- The pace of the shot in the beginning is to long, have more cuts in the forest.
- Lip syncing well cut to shots.
- Music starts on point at the beginning.
- I like the fade at the beginning.
- Toilet fades are really nice.

Summary:
Our peers mostly liked the effects and pace of the video, but said that the lip syncing could be timed better.

Suggestions of editing improvements:

- Maybe have Elise (main character) faded in the background for longer.
- Lip syncing should be improved but I think once the editing is done it will be fine.

Summary of editing improvements:

Fading and lip syncing could be improved was the overall feedback we received for our editing.

Creativity and Conventions:

- The actors look like a real band.
- I like the way the opening and end link, it adds to the story.

- The lighting and the use of real locations adds to the verisimilitude.

- I really like the shot of the singers playing with leaves as the tempo starts getting faster.

- I like how the song slowly comes to an end, the singers start walking down.

- I like them throwing leaves to the camera at the end and they boy covers the camera with his hand. 

Summary:
Our peers mostly liked the ending of our video.

Suggestions of creativity and conventions improvements:

- Re-film Elise (main character) being shaken by her dad.

- Why is there an electric guitar?
- Man on left strumming the guitar to enthusiastically.

- More leaf throwing.

Summary of creativity and conventions improvements:

The biggest improvement our peers told us about was the use of an electric guitar and the guitarist being a bit to over enthusiastic. We will change this when we re-film next week.

Production - Initial edit of 'Man on Fire'

Initial edit of 'Man on Fire' - 

Production - Reflection week 11

 Reflection week 11 -

This week has been a very busy week for my partner and I. We have been working on our editing due to the fact we had an initial edit deadline on Friday, where we needed to show other partnerships in our class our work and gain feedback on our filming, editing and creativity/conventions and also suggestions for improvements in things we could do to make our music video better. Whilst editing throughout the week my partner and I had noticed things that we needed to do to improve our music video, for example we knew we needed to film more close ups of the band members and also even some of the main character, to give our video more emotion to it. 
My partner and I had struggled with final cut in the past few weeks but this week has been a breakthrough as we are fining it an easier programme to use and we are even starting to include some transitions which is making us more excited for our video as we can see it coming together slowly. As this week we mainly focused on editing there is not much that can be said in this reflection.

Next Week -
Next week my partner and I plan to even out our lessons and work on both the music video editing and magazine advert/digipak editing. We will also write up the feedback we have received from other partnerships in our class and discuss with one another what things we will do to improve our music video.

Production - Reflection week 10

Reflection week 10 -

This week my partner and I have been busy. We have been working on filming and also the production of the magazine advert and digipak. When looking at our footage we knew that we needed to film a large amount of the narrative stage. We had already filmed a certain amount, but together as a partnership we decided that we would film everything again but with the main character without uniform, by doing this we would relate to our age group as this will connote her being in a sixth form or a college. We filmed all of our narrative in one day and we were surprised that we got it all done to the standard that we wanted. After filming this footage we needed to work on our digipak and magazine advert. 

My partner and I decided that we would want to make a sticker to put on the front of our digipak as it will show the buyer what they are buying and also the things will be included within the digipak. We then made two more initial ideas for our digipak, these ideas were later adapted. We realised that we were making many ideas for our magazine advert and that we needed to direct some attention towards our digipak. The digipak needed to include a sticker and also a thank you message from the band to break up some of the pictures as it was all leaves. This is still only an idea and needs to be adapted even more as there are some images that need to be changed around and some text included. We then included the second sticker on a edit of our digipak. 

Then my partner and I decided to work more on our magazine advert. We decided on a final picture to use for the final edit of the magazine advert. Then we decided to play around with the colours of the background image of the magazine advert, we looked at what the image would look like if it was brightened or if the contrast level was higher. We then decided to add in a quote from Kerrang and also a rating, this hopefully would increase a buyers chance of buying the digipak, as a magazine which is known for talking about the most recent popular artists have given this band such a high rating. We made our third initial edit from this. My partner and I have also come up with another idea, we have the idea to have an out layer of our digipak and maybe include the sticker on there, we have looked a Paul Weller's digipak to gather some inspiration and we will proceed to look into this within the following weeks. 

My partner and I have also been editing throughout the week, we have so far cut down all the clips we want to use and we have been adding them onto final cut. We have been cutting to the music and although we found it difficult we have slowly started to work it out. 

Next week - 

Next week my partner and I have discussed how we are going to split the lessons. As we have four media lessons a week we are going to allocate two lessons to working on the digipak and the magazine advert and then another two lessons to working on editing on our music video. We also may stay back for one or two days after school or at lunch and work some more on both editing and the production of the magazine advert and digipak. Next week my partner and I will also look into to the idea of the out layer of the digipak and see if it would be possible to make this.

Production - Digipak sticker and out layer -

Digipak sticker and out layer - 

 My partner found this digipak and we both thought that a digipak plastic cover, similar to Paul Weller's one would make a great addition to the final digipak. Paul Weller's digipak cover includes small text that says 'DELUXE EDITION', and the sticker is on the plastic over rather than on the front of the digipak itself. 

We agreed that we like the idea of a plastic cover on our digipak like Weller's. We have not yet decided if the cover will be white or if it will have a green tint to it and we are also not sure if it is possible to make yet we will try our hardest as we both believe this will make our digipak even more appealing and more authentic.