Evaluation

4. (iii) How Did You Use New Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

This group of images shows the equipment and websites we used in order to create and advertise our music video. 

We shot all the footage on my HD video Canon powershot camera. We wanted our video have a high quality effect and look like a proper music video, therefore we chose to use our own camera as opposed to one that the school provided. We also used this camera to take the images for our location shots as well as our images for the ancillary texts. 

We edited and made all parts of the coursework on a Macbook Pro, this was useful for us as it provided us with the IMovie software, also my laptop has Photoshop CS5 installed, we were able to keep all our information (images, initial footage) on one computer as opposed to swapping it betweens the school computers and our own.

We uploaded our first draft of our video as well as the final thing to Youtube,this allowed us to show it to people quickly and efficiently. It also allows people to comment and like the video so we can appreciate the audience response. We also used Facebook to send links of the video to our friends. This also helped us with our audience response as it was an effective way of quickly advertising the video, with over 150 people watching the music video.

We published all our work, pre production and post production on Blogger. This has been useful and key to our coursework process, for practical reasons, we can upload from any computer as well as allowing people to view our work helping once again with audience feedback. 

Evaluation

4. (ii) How Did You Use New Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

This collage shows how we used photoshop to create our digipack and poster. The three images in the left had corner reveal how many layers we had to use in order to create the desired effect. As the initial tree image is created from three different images, the tree shape, the image of the leaves underneath and the black shadow around the edge, this accounts for three layers for just one part of the front cover. 

The main editing we used on our creation of the ancillary texts was changing the levels, to create a "cross processed" effect on the background as well as slightly on the leaves as well. We played a lot with the contrast of the images, as there is a lot of black lines and shades in the background, we didn't want them to stand out and distract from the text. Therefore, we tried to lower the contrast of the aged background which would brighten the tree image as well as the text. However, as the music video has a low saturation, we wanted this to be conveyed linked through with the digipack and poster. Therefore we played a lot with the saturation of the images, making them appear to be relatively gloomy and dim as opposed to bright and loud. 

Evaluation

4. (i) How Did You Use New Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

To create our video we used the program "iMovie." We chose to use this program as i have had had previous experience with it and know how to use and therefore we were able to manipulate our footage to create an artistic and effective final piece. To make the different clips flow together to make create a continuity in the editing, we added a "cross dissolve" transition to allow the clips to fade into each other.
The saturation is very low in our video to create a film like effective, also due to the weather, the lighting was different each time we took new shots. Therefore, by using a low saturation we were able to manipulate the lighting effects to make it seem like it was all shot continuously. The second image shows how we changed the saturation and the contrast of white and black.
We wanted our film to be in reverse and often we needed to slow down the speed of the film to make her running backwards look more exaggerated. The third photo shows how we did this. It also reveals how we added the black "vignette" shadows around the side of the video.
To create our music video we needed to remove the sound from the original film footage, as the filming took place outside a lot of wind and background noise was heard in the audio. How we did this is shown in the last image.

Evaluation

3. What Have You Learnt From Your Audience Feedback?

Evaluation

2. How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

We knew straight away when hearing “Piledriver Waltz” that we wanted to use it as our chosen song. The messages of the song seemed to stare out at us and therefore we felt it necessary to include them in our video. Another reason we decided to use this song was  because there was no official music video created for it already, therefore we had no influences behind our choice of setting and action. 

 The lyrics of the song mention, misery, heartbreak, losing someone and unhappy endings, however we didn’t want the video itself to appear to be too miserable as we assumed it would distract from the genre of the song, maybe straying to a more emo side. That is when we came up with the idea of playing the video in reverse, although in the storyline she ends up jumping into the river, when watching it, the video ends with her getting back with the one she loves. 

We decided to use nature as a key element in our video, after watching many music videos of this genre including, Slow Moving Mile, Coldplay, The Script and many more, we realized that trees and greenery are included a lot in their videos. Also, practically, our school is located adjacent to the river thames and is surrounded by trees and woods. When we did most of our filming (which was during our Media Studies lessons) we were able to use these facilities to our advantage as opposed to traveling outside of school to take our footage. 

As nature was so important in our video, we decided to use Trees as our underlying theme. That is where the idea of our digipack came along from. The image behind the outline of the tree was taken from one of our location shoots of some leaves on the ground, however we thought the colours added an interesting aspect to the colours of a tree. The font we used, we downloaded online. It seemed to be a clear and legible font yet it also appeared to be quite aged. This appealed to us as the background of our digipack looks like old and torn paper and we believed that the font effectively matched it. We wanted to keep the digipack simple and flowing and therefore we kept the same image for the back cover, only moved it to the right hand side and changed the opacity so the text would stand out more so than the image. Our chosen song is from the soundtrack from the film “Submarine” and we included information about the film in the written text about the album. The other two images used in our digi pack we took on our location shoots. The image of the building was used in our music video and therefore there is a clear link between the ancillary tasks and the main product. 

The poster we created was very similar to the front cover of our cd digi-pack as we wished to create an obvious link between the two. For an audience point of view, to see the poster in a magazine they can immediately recognize the album from the imagery used on the poster. We wanted to include the ratings on the right hand size for several reasons. One as an artistic reason, without them, the side of the page would have looked empty and the image of the tree would have looked a bit lost. Another reasons we included the ratings was to convey to the audience the value of the album.  

Evaluation

1. (ii) In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions Of Real Media Products?

1. The lyrics of the song when this clip was taken are “a few drinks would help me forget her” and the image shows the lead singer (protagonist of the music video) drinking with his friends. The opening lyrics are all to do with drinking and ‘drowning ones sorrows’ and the footage of a bar and ordering drinks is a clear reference to the lyrics.
2. This clip from “Pumped up Kicks” by Foster The People, shows the singer (the following shots show other band members) singing in front of a large audience. This would illustrate to the people watching the video that the band is successful and popular as in their video they are performing before their admiring fans. 
3. This video clip was taken from The Foo Fighters song “Pretender.” The Foo Fighters are a typical rock band. This is conveyed in this clip as the singer is playing an electric guitar which is one of the main instruments used in rock music. He is also conveying other Rock Music conventions, such as his long hair which is very common among the rock music style. Also, his outfit helps to convey the genre - a t-shirt and jeans. If it were a rap video it would be expected that he would be wearing a much baggier top and trousers with ‘Bling’ as opposed to tighter fitting clothing.
4. This image is taking from “Danni California” by Red Hot Chilli Peppers. The video shows the different ages of music, this shot was taken from the band performing as a sex pistols like group, shown through psychedelic colours and outrageous fashion sense.
5. The camera shot seemed really different and original. Taken from “Nothing” by The Script, it is a shot from below of a women lying in water. It reveals her her dress floating in the river whilst also capturing the light of the sun from above the river
6. This clip is taken from “Heaven” by Emili Sande. The lighting is effective here as the her face is lit from the side making the left side of face appear to be in shadow making her face appear almost as a silhouette. However, the natural lighting has made the street outside her window appear to be lit normally. The sheer darkness mixed with the brightness outside contrasts each other and reflects on the somber mood of the song.
7. Once again, this clip is taken from “Nothing.” It demonstrates a clear use of mise-en-scene as the band members are acting as a group of friends looking after a drunk character. They are seen coming out of a bar and the message of the song is reflected in the action.
8. This clip from “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” by Slow Moving Mile is similar to “The Scientist” due to the idea of the persona being the singer, beginning by lying on the floor. Also, the references to trees and woods is also used in both videos. Using nature and woods was also used in my music video
9. The shot of a woman lying in water with a flowing dress on is used in “Nothing” by The Script too. The person in the water is symbolizing the loss of something, generally love. Once again, this was also used in my music video too.  

Evaluation

1. ( i)  In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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1. The lyrics from the chorus read “If you’re going to walk on water make sure you wear your comfortable shoes.” This shot from the video shows a clear representation of a woman on water. As these lyrics are repeated throughout the song, links to water scenes are also repeated throughout the video, including a swan in the river as well as ripples in the water all used to recreate these lyrics. The shot shown here takes place with the lyrics “on the back of a raindrop,” as she continues to fly out of the water, you see droplets of the water forming back into the river. This could be seen to represent a raindrop which shows another clear link to the lyrics of the song.
2. The genre of the song is a very typical ‘Indie’ or ‘Alternative’ scene. Therefore the stereotypical dress sense of an Indie singer or group would not be following the mainstream fashion. He is shown to be wearing a shirt and jeans as opposed to tracksuit bottoms or a t-shirt which is often quite a mainstream style of dressing. His facial expression is quite somber which matches the mood of the song, if he was smiling and cheerful then it would contradict the message of leaving and sadness shown through the female characters actions. 
3. Most songs of this genre are often somber and relatively mellow, therefore we tried to represent this through costume, lighting and mise-en-scene. Nature is key in our music video and therefore mainly being set in the woods allowed us to convey it. The lighting in the shot is dim and the further vignette editing which darkens the edges depicts a mellow mood. 
4. This shot shows the girl jumping in reverse over a log. It was initially filmed normally (forward) yet it was edited to be in reverse. This idea came from the video of “The Scientist” by Coldplay where the whole music video is in reverse as well. 
5. This part of the video shows the girl lying on the floor, with the camera rotating around her at floor level. The whole video shows a variety of camera angles, however this one I believe is quite interesting, due to the constant movement of the camera whilst changing from a down shot to a slight upshot of her.
6. As mentioned before, the lighting in the video is relatively dim altered slightly by the vignette editing and the low saturation. This shot clearly shows it as the trees are blocking some of the natural light which could represent a mellow mood. 
7. The mise-en-scene throughout the video is set in the woods and river. This shot effectively shows a combination of the two elements. Due to the mood of the song, linking to misery and heartbreak, as well as many reference in the lyrics to nature and water, we believed the river and woods were effective places to set the music video.
8. After watching the music video of “Nothing” from The Script, we used the idea of a girl floating in the water. She is wearing a long floaty dress to try and get the impression of the dress floating in the river. Another video which involves a girl floating in water is Dido’s “Don’t Leave Home” which also shows her falling into the sea as well.
9. Coldplay’s music video “The Scientist” if very influential upon our video. The long shot of the girl running into the woods was taken from their idea as well the initial idea of the video being in reverse. However, we did not include lip-syncing in our video for several reasons. One being, it did not fit properly with our expectations of an Indie music video. Secondly, the protagonist in the video is a girl and the song is sung by a male. Thirdly, the technicality of someone lip-syncing in reverse would have been very difficult to reconstruct and would not have worked effectively. 

Final Video

Click for Link To Final Video

Magazine Poster Another Version

2nd Digipack Draft

First Draft Of Music Video

Link To First Draft of Music Video