Evaluation Question 1 : By Daniel Morton

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

In comparison to other real media products, our Music video both develops and challenges the ideal conventions. This is because, despite only being 8 principles as suggested in Goodwin’s Theory, music videos heavily vary dependant on genre and the style of artist within them.
Not all of the points proposed in Goodwin’s theory were relevant, and therefore not used, during the production of our music video.
However we did attempt to use some of them to help with the process, the key points we focussed on included:

- The Link Between the lyrics and visuals, we did this by :

• Using specific shots where people held up placards with the lyrics written on them.

- The Link Between the music and the visuals, we did this by:

• Making sure that the band shots fitted with the music as it was playing in the background.

- Genre characteristics, we did this by:

• Making sure that the shots we filmed would fit in with the general conventions of a pop/punk music video. This ensured that the video looked more official.

- Narrative based, concept based or performance based music videos, we did this by:

• We mainly used performance based shots, which included many different shots taken of the band playing the song. This was done because it is more conventional with this genre/style of music. However we also used some concept based shots with the placards.

We stuck to these key conventions because it helped make the video more official looking and therefore maybe recognisable as a real media product. We developed an idea used by The American Rejects song “Dirty Little Secret” which has shots of different people holding up placards with their supposed secrets on. We liked this idea and therefore chose to use it in our own way, however instead of the secrets written on them we chose to place important lyrics from the song. We then edited these shots in time with the music so that the people holding the placards were shown in time with music so that people could read the lyrics as they were sung. This therefore linked the lyrics with the visuals, which is one of Goodwin’s points.
Other similar conventions used in pop/punk music videos would include the shot types, and very often within band performance videos, many close ups of the band playing their separate instruments are used, to collaborate with and develop this idea we used a wide variety of different close ups. This included shots of the singer at the microphone, the guitars during the solo, and the drums during key parts in the song.

We focussed heavily on the genre characteristics of the artist so that we could incorporate similar ideas into our music video. After doing research into other real media products we noticed that similar pop/punk artists used a mixture of both narrative and band performance shots. Therefore we had planned to use a similar mixture within our own video. However due to complications we were unable to film any narrative parts and therefore our video ended up having to be solely performance based. We took into consideration that having a completely performance based video would get tedious for the audience watching and therefore added some concept based shots, the placards.

Also we noticed how similar artists had very fast cuts in between different shots and to make our own video effective we had to do the same, because at first with slow longer shots of the band the video seemed really boring and took forever to get interesting, we had to change this.

Evaluation Question 2 : By Daniel Morton

2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary task?

Our ancillary task was to create a Digi-pack to go with our music video. The Digi-pack included:

- A 4 panel CD cover

- A poster or a magazine advert.

Our main product was the music video, for this we decided to use a college band called “Kids From The Summer” who fit into the pop/punk genre. For the digi-pack we chose to do the 4 panel CD cover and the poster rather the magazine advert, the digi-pack had to compliment the music video we created because the idea was that people would be able to recognise that the two were linked due to similar conventions from each.
To ensure that this was the case we attempted to keep similar themes within both products, to do this we played upon the styles of the artists and how the pop/punk scene seemed to fit in with lots of bright colours. As shown in their current logo for the band image:

Ways in which we made the digi-pack link with our music video included how we used similar images that were shown in the music video. The Poster and front cover of our CD artwork showed an image of the lead signers tattoo’s which say “Love” and “Lust” on his wrists. This directly links with the song title “Love or Lust” and also the tattoos can be seen during the video when the singer is holding the microphone:

Also on the digi-pack we tried to copy the style of writing used in the singers tattoo’s which wasn’t easy and trying to find a font in Photoshop took time. Eventually we found and chose to use a font which was similar to the tattoos.
However we only used this font on the back page of our CD artwork, as we believed that the font didn’t really fit in with the bands style, instead for the rest of the Digi-pack we used a font called “Sketchblock” which suited the band more. This was used on both the poster and album artwork.

Here is the poster:

Due to using the image of the singers tattoo’s in both parts of the digi-pack, a strong link between the ancillary task and music video has been made, as the audience will be able to identify that the two products are related.

Therefore I feel that both the digi-pack and music video both effectively work well together as they represent the bands style. This means that the products would efficiently reach the pop/punk audience members, due to the use of bright colours and performance based shots within the video.

Evaluation Question 4 : By Daniel Morton

4) Have you used new media technologies?

Throughout the production of my music video I have used many new media technologies, for all aspects of my A2 coursework piece.

- Research
- Filming
- Editing


Research

During the start of my production we researched into various other artists’ music videos, to gain ideas and find out what sort of conventions we would need/want to use in our own video. To find these videos we used a mixture of both:


www.youtube.com
www.myspace.com


We then logged the research done onto our blog site, which is a new technology to me because last year a majority of my work had to be hand written. Using Blogger we were able to keep all our research and ideas well organised and also allowed easy access to it all at any time, so we were able to look back at any of our work and reflect/ change our ideas later on. On the blog we were able to upload videos and images which is a large improvement on written notes, because having the video/ image in front of you whilst reading the analysis makes it a lot easier to remember why we were looking at those ideas.


Filming

When filming the video this year we had access to new HD cameras with SD cards in rather than recording using cameras with tape. This made the whole process of filming and editing a lot easier. Also because the cameras were HD the video quality was a lot higher than it would have been if we had used the older cameras.


Editing


Editing was a lot different this year due to the use of different software for myself, last year at college I used Adobe’s Premier pro, while this year for editing purposes I have used both Final Cut Pro for the video footage and also Photoshop for a lot of the Digi-pack.
Although Final Cut was a new program to me the basics of the program were fairly similar in how it worked and I was able to work it all out fairly swiftly.


In final cut we had to capture the footage we had filmed beforehand, and also add in the music from the song “Love or Lust”. We then chose the shots we wanted to use and spent time aligning them with the correct parts of the music so that it looked in place and you could see that the singer was singing during the right parts, or the guitar being played was the same, this got fairly intricate when our shots started becoming shorter and faster cuts in between.


Whilst editing the video we tried using a few different visual effects to give it a different feel, one of these was a black and white effect, which was initially within our storyboard. However after placing it on the video we decided it looked better without it. Also because some of the things we wanted to do with the video were too hard, we decided it would be more time efficient to leave them out, these included such effects as having specific parts of the shot in colour e.g. an instrument.


When it came to editing and creating our Digi-Pack we used Photoshop, with this we were able to edit the photos we had taken of the band. We were able to use different effects and techniques to get the look we wanted, which involved taking the image of the tattoos and having everything but the words on the tattoos in black and white. The original colour of the tattoos were just black however after we edited the image they were a bright red, which is more conventional for the style of music.
Here is the image:

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:

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:

1. Good band shots
2. Effective setting that suited the style of the music
3. I liked the cards with the words
4. Quick editing effective for pace of the music
5. Simplicity was effective
6. Quick cuts in time with the music worked well
7. Repeating shots too long
8. Using the same person with the cards was noticeable
9. 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:

1. 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
2. Film more footage so we have more options and a variety of shots
3. Practice with the effects beforehand
4. 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:

1. Link between the lyrics and visuals
2. Link between the music and visuals
3. Genre characteristics
4. Intertextual references
5. Notions of looking (objectification of women)
6. Voyeurism (direct gaze, other people looking at the artists, insight into the artists life, screens and mirrors)
7. Demands of the record label (representation of the artist)
8. 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.

Compare it to other videos

Link to other videos of same style- punk rock

Digi-pack

This is the 4 panels of our Digi-Pack including

• Front Cover


• 2 Inlays


• Back Cover with A list of songs.


• 

Digi-pack Poster

Final Cut- Love or Lust Music Video

Evaluation Ideas

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

• Voice over our music video at points of different conventions.
  

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

• Blog post

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

• Video or audio interviews with other media students, students interested in the punk rock genre of music and others to get a wide view of different opinions.

Question 4: Have you used new media technologies?

• Blog post

Changing the Narrative

We felt that the shots we filmed were not effective when cut to fit the storyboard because each shot was shown too long. Music videos, especially of the punk rock genre, have to have quick cut shots to math the pace of the music. By sticking to the storyboard the attention of the audience would be lost.

Because the editing differs from the storyboard it meant that the narrative sequence we had in mind was too long winded for the rest of the video, we needed a quick pace idea.

We did some extra research into narratives in punk rock music videos and found "Dirty Little Secrets" By The All-American Rejects. We liked the idea of using placards to show the story. This also means that we can use quick cuts of different words to keep the pace.

Filming Settings

Two weeks ago we filmed footage for our music video for "Love or Lust" by Kids From The Summer. We chose Worle Community school as our setting because it has a large stage which could fit all the band members and their instruments. We took two cameras with us and set them up in different positions to establish a variety of angles. We filmed extra footage then we actually planned to so we had more to play with in the editing stage.

Record Label

We designed a record label that went with the genre of the bands style, as though they could actually be signed by the company.

We went onto Da Font and found a punk style font that we liked the look of. We then downloaded it and created a simplistic logo for the record company. We came up with the idea of Graffiti Records because the font does not only suit the punk genre of the music but has a graffiti style to it.

Here is our record label that will appear on the back of the CD and on the magazine advert:

After researching into existing logos we made sure that our logo was as simple as possible but so the record companies name was clearly displayed. Since the logo will be small on the back of the CD case or magazine advert the bold font means the name is still visible.

Creation of the Album Artwork.

Today we have begun designing the album artwork and cover for the Digi-Pack. So far we have came up with one idea being;

• The band fighting a Robot made out of instruments.
• The band may be dressed up in superhero outfits.

We decided to try and design this because we believe that it suits the bands style and would portray them on the album artwork as what they're like, and would be fairly bright and colourful, following the trend the band seems to have.

Location Ideas

In the second scenario we are showing the singer (lead male) in a room with the girl changing person to show his relationships are constantly changing. After watching Paramore's video of "The Only Exception" we had the idea to film the scene in a restaurant with the female swapping in the chair opposite the male.

At 1:53 Hayley Williams, the lead singer from Paramore, is in a restaurant at a table for two with males queuing at the seat opposite her. We thought this looked effective but would not have the girls queuing but have quick cuts where in each shot the girl would have changed.

Filming Settings

For the first narrative we are filming a bench shot with two people on it. We took a few photos of various benches to decide upon which would be most suited for the shot we want to achieve.

We have chosen to use the red metal bench as the colour will give the music video a punk effect. Also we would have the option to film the background in black and white but keep the red bench as a colour accent, keeping up our original idea.

For the last scenario we are filming either on a beach or across a bridge for the setting where the argument takes place. We took some photos from different angles over a bridge which looked quite effective.

We are still going to look into whether a beach shot will look more effective or whether other bridges from around weston will be more appropriate.