KIDS FROM THE SUMMER: February 2011

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Construction

Video:

The sound quality of the music video differs when listened to on a PC rather than an Apple computer. Even after the video has been re-uploaded

Digi-Pack:

Wednesday 2 February 2011

Evaluation Question 4: Have you used new media technologies?

Research and Planning

To keep track of our research, planning and other work we used Blogger. This made all our work accessable at home allowing us to log extra research conducted outside of lessons and kept all our work organised. We were also able to plan lesson schedules and what outside work we needed to be done, it acted as a diary which kept us on time with deadlines.

We experimented with different ways to present our research on our blog and decided that the website Wordle would be able to show our text in an innovative ways.

Filming

During the creation of our music video we used an HD camera. This enhanced the quality of the filming and achieved a clearer image overall. The cameras use an SD card which allows clips to be transferred individually into Final Cut Pro, rather than have to log and capture the wholesequence. This sped up the editing process because we filmed a lot of short, fast clips which would have been difficult to log and capture.

Editing

During the editing we used Final Cut Pro. This allowed us to cut all cut the footage how we wanted it and to create a sequence. We also edited the music in Final Cut Pro. We cut out parts of the music and added in other sections to make the editing sound seamless. We also cut the end few choruses and used Final Cut Pro to fade out the soundtrack (shown in the image below).

We used the crop tool on Final Cut Pro to edit the shots of people holding the placards. We filmed the footage around college and outside distractions could be seen, like posters etc. We cropped them down so that only the person and the placard was seen to keep the attention focused on them and to make the overall video look more professional.

We added a black and white effect to the video but came to the conclusion that it took away the liveliness of the video and the colour kept up the personality of the band and target audience. We were planning on adding colour accents to the video, however, due to time constraints and lack of knowledge in creating the effect we decided the footage, even though it was left without any effects, looked more effective and less tacky.

Digi-Pack

For the digi-pack we used Photoshop to edit the photos we took on the day of filming to use them in the digi-pack as central images on the front cover and back cover etc. We also took advantage of photoshops many different effects and editing tools; for example of the front cover with Elliot's tattoos we used various colour tools to create the desired effect. The writing on the tattoo was originally plain black but we used the colour filter to filter out the harsh dark colours and add in shades red to create the vibrant red writing we're left with now. We changed the contrast to make the hands a bright white colour, which worked well with the bright red colour of the tattoo and complimented each other really well.

We downloaded a font called SketchBlock from a font website called Dafont then we imported this font into Font Book. Dafont gave us the opportunity to find a font that linked in with the tattoo and the style of the band.

Evaluation Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We showed our final copy of our Love or Lust music video to other media students, teachers and families to get a wide range of opinions on the final product. We also made sure we asked people who follow bands with a similar style to Kids From The Summer. This is some of the positive and negative feedback we received:

Good band shots
Effective setting that suited the style of the music
I liked the cards with the words
Quick editing effective for pace of the music
Simplicity was effective
Quick cuts in time with the music worked well
Repeating shots too long
Using the same person with the cards was noticeable
Placards looked as though we were filling in space

Our audience feedback has taught us a lot about what works well and what is not so effective when creating a music video, especially in the style of punk rock. Here is what we would consider editing, cutting or changing if we were to re-create our music video:

Follow the storyboard more and if the storyboard has to change we should re-draft it because it will give us a sense of direction and structure and we will know exactly what shots we need
Film more footage so we have more options and a variety of shots
Practice with the effects beforehand
Make sure we do not use the same shots or shots too similar more than once

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancilary text?

Our main product was a music video for a punk rock band called Kids From The Summer. To compliment this we created a digi-pack which includes: a four panel album cover and a poster advertising the release of the album.

To ensure that the digi-pack, four pannelled album artwork and advertisement poster, and main product, music video, worked well together we tried to keep a running theme throughout both. We had difficulties achieving what we wanted with the music video because the filming of the narrative did not work out as we planned, this then changed the rest of the storyboard resulting in a change to the design of the digi-pack.

The text of the digi-pack and poster had to link however the front cover font is a tattoo and hard to replicate. The back cover has a similar swirly font to the tattoo to make the product look more proffessional with the continuity. However, on the inside we used the sketchblock font, downloaded from Dafont, that represented the bands style of punk rock more effectively. To link the two products we used the same sketchblock font with bright neon colours for the poster. The neon colours worked well with trying to represent the band through the product. The colours will also attract the bands fan base as they are mainly following the punk rock style which includes a lot of neon colours. We then used the image from the front cover of the album as the image for the poster. This is to make sure that those interested in buying the album would easily recognise it from the advertisement poster if it was sold in store.

Here is the font style we used on the poster although we used lots more different colours.

The image on the front cover of the album artwork is a photo of the lead singers tattoos. The tattoos can be seen during the video and can be assocciated as a traidmark to the lead singer. By using this image we linked the video to the album cover. Also because this is a promotional pack that is advertising a new band the branding of the tattoo can make the audience and fans relate to the lead singer and follow his style.

This is a screen shot of the video showing the lead singers tattoo.

Once we had changed the narrative from a running story to quick shots of placards that showed the lyrics and song title, the digi-pack deviated away from the video. To keep the link between the two products we should have incorporated the placards within the digi-pack on at least one of the four pannels to create a sense of continuity between the two products.

Both the video and the digi-pack are representative of the band and their style of music. This means that both the products will be well suited for the audience, as the fan base will also be mainly of the punk rock style. The bright colours of the digi-pack, funny pictures of the band members and quick cutting video all link into the style.

Evaluation Question 1: How does your media product use, develop and challenge the conventions of real media products?

Goodwin's theory for the creation of music videos has 8 main principles:

Link between the lyrics and visuals
Link between the music and visuals
Genre characteristics
Intertextual references
Notions of looking (objectification of women)
Voyeurism (direct gaze, other people looking at the artists, insight into the artists life, screens and mirrors)
Demands of the record label (representation of the artist)
Narrative based, concept base or performance based music videos

In the making of our video we linked the lyrics and the visuals of the video by displaying the lyrics to the songs on a variety of coloured placards held up by different people, these would be quickly cut and flow in time to the lyrics that were being said at the points in the time when we had the placards up.

We fit in the music of the song (which had a pop/punk vibe to it) by displaying a selection of shots that that had the band jumping around on stage, we made the shots quicker and this mirrored the pace of the music and the bands image, we also had a variety of close ups on the different instruments the band had (such as the guitar and drums) this gave the audience a visual comparison to the music playing and the instrument playing certain the bit in focus whilst the close up was displayed.

Our music video has very close comparisons to the All American Rejects song "Dirty Little Secret" we liked the use of different people holding up their secret on a different type of placard in this video and so adapted this and worked it into our video by having different people hold up the lyrics to the song on coloured placards.

Throughout the course of the video the band are wearing punk style fashion clothing this is reflective of the bands image and the song playing and makes the band easier for the target audience to listen to and fits in with the typical conventions of a pop/punk, their style of performance is also reflective of this with lots of jumping around on stage and lively movements throughout the video.