Evaluation: QUESTION FOUR

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




During our research, for successfully creating a music video, digipak and magazine advert we found that the internet was a really helpful and insightful source. It allows us to compare our ideas with others that have been created previous to our work and ensure that ours is to a very high standard. The internet allows us to listen to songs for free via youtube.com, which enabled us to search for a song that was ideal for myself and my group, and also allowed us to look into their background and how The Black Eyed Peas built up their career from scratch to the top. The internet also supplied us with sites such as blogger, which allowed me to write about my updates and how i was developing my ideas through out the period of the course. Research, i found this year, was key, as without it our end result would've been of a lot less detailed as we learnt new things as time went along, without this knowledge, our work wouldn't have been as enriched with information, leading us to lose marks. 
Filming: This year we were able to get our hands on a new HD quality video camera, which allowed our shots to have clearer detail and seem smoother. It was also quicker to import the footage onto the computer, as the software was newer and quicker than that of the previous cameras we used last year.  The HD camera was also lighter and smaller, allowing us to efficiently move from place to place without it being much of a hassle. 
Web 2.0 has allowed us to work so much quicker this year, and because we have been working with the programs on the computer (such as Final Cut pro and Photoshop) everything seems to come together a lot quicker than before, therefore allowing us to get more done in a shorter amount of time, it also helps with the fact that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are now part of most of our every day lives, allowing us to communicate with others quickly and efficiently to retain feedback about our final products, which helps us improve and expand our work. 
For our digipak and magazine advert, Photoshop was used to edit the images, such as airbrushing them, altering levels and curves, and reshaping and cropping the images canvas to fit the correct size for the digipak. To take the images an SLR camera was used in a studio with lighting and backdrop, the fact that the camera and lighting was easily accessible because of the growth of technology, allowed us to take the pictures efficiently and quickly. 
Whilst editing the photos, we imported them into Final Cut Pro, as our images were taken in front of  green screen, using our knowledge from what we have previously used from filming in front of green screens, we managed to edit the background to make it black for the image as we believed that this would be more effective and striking, especially when we added the neon purples colouring which were also added through an effect in Final Cut Pro.
Layers were used in photoshop for the digipak and magazine advert too, which allowed us to overlay barcodes, star ratings and record labels onto our work. 
The internet also allowed us to create presentations on things such as prezi.com, liderocket.com and we were able to import various texts by downloading fonts from sites such as dafont.com, which we used in our music video, digipak and magazine advert. Luckily for us, these sort of sites have only recently introduced to web 2.0 in the last 3 years, which has opened up plenty of opportunities for our work to look more professional and intriguing. 
Over all, without any of the technology that has become available in recent years, our final results would've been compromised, making it harder and slower to complete as the process would've been more difficult. 

Evaluation: QUESTION THREE

Evaluation: QUESTION TWO

How effective is the combination of your main products and your ancillary tasks?


After finishing our Final Cut, we were set the task of creating a digipak and magazine advert, also known as the 'ancillary taks'. My group and I realised that we had to use things to make them both intertwine and show the audience that they were clearly from the same artists, for example, we didn't want to have a Pop/RnB sort of music video, but then a very Indie/Punk album artwork, as the audience would be lost as to what we are trying to portray. 


To ensure that our music video and ancillary tasks 'matched' we went to a number of lengths to make sure they were identifiable. 


The first thing we made sure we did was to use the same text for the album artwork/magazine advert that we used in our music video, which we downloaded from dafont.com, as we wanted a futuristic approach to be shown in our music video, and we believed that the variation of text that we downloaded had this kind of appeal. We stuck to one font as we thought that in this case 'less is more' and was more striking than if we over complicated it. We also used neon colours for the font to match that from the video also, we chose to do neon colours as we too wanted it to be bold and eye catching, as well as seeming quite electric to go with how striking the song is.

Considering most of our footage was also captured in the studio which had dark back drops and good lighting, we decided that our magazine advert, front album artwork and and inlay panel should be of photos that we also took in the studio too, also making it seem more professionally taken. 

The Inlay panel of just myself is to attract that artist to the female representation of the group, as TBEP often use Fergie's sexualisation to their advantage, leering in more fans from the male gaze and how she is sexually perceived. With this image we stuck to similar colour schemes, focusing on the purples and neon colouring. 


 Overall i think we worked well to relate and intertwine the similarities from our final cut of our media product to the ancillary tasks that followed. However, when i reflect on it i would've worked harder with my group to make the digipak look more like a 'real' one.

Evaluation: QUESTION ONE

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge the Forms and Conventions of Real Media Texts?

'You need to have both narrative and performance, a star image, images that relate to the song and technical aspects of music videos.' - Andrew Goodwin. 

Our media product that we were asked to create was a music video. Music videos generally, as a whole, has many forms and conventions, and for every genre of music these altar. Not only is it genre's that makes music videos forms and conventions altar, it is also the time period. Culture has a massive influence on a music video, making them get bigger, bolder and much more expensive, when the demand for the music videos boomed in the 1980's, when artist such as Bon Jovi put all their time into creating something memorable. Youtube.com and music channels such as MTV and 4music has made music videos grow in demand, with most artists relying on the quality of their music video just as much as their music to increase their popularity. Most artists also hire in certain directors, who brand in their own sort of style to a music video, making their work individual but also noticably similar to the other work they film.

We wanted to choose a music video that had an appealing genre to a wide range of people. Asking around and doing some research, we decided that Hiphop/RnB is probably the most popular genre of music that attracts the youth of today. Because of the amount of people in our group we thought it would only be fair to include all of us, which also enables us to do as much work as one another, so we wanted to choose a song that was sung by 4 members. The band that we chose to base our theme and style around was 'The Black Eyed Peas'. Black Eyes Peas started off as a hip hop kind of band, who have gradually turned more dance and techno in recent years, obviously trying to reach out to a wider/different fan base, that is now growing and mainly Japan. We wanted to focus quite a lot on the performance in our music video as TBEP (The Black Eyes Peas) have a habit of performing a lot in their own music videos, performing straight to the camera, sometimes solely and sometimes as a group, which i think we varied quite well through out our own music video.
In the studio we used a variety of shots, ranging from close ups, to mid shots. Low angles were used, especially with Troy, to make them seem dominating, as TBEP are quite a confident and up front band as it is. The lack of story line in the lyrics meant that we couldn't particularly film a clear narrative, and although we have a few walking scenes in our music video, there is a lack of understanding as to where Sam and Troy are actually walking to, so i think if my group and I were ever to film something similar to this again, we would have to make sure our narrative was clearer.

I think we stuck quite closely to the RnB genre sort of video, of mainly performance and quick cutting to the beat, similar to Jason Derulo's video found to the left, however his video features a lot more narrative than ours, which makes us remember, just because an artists music is classed as a certain genre does not necessarily mean that they have to follow the conventions of music videos that are often used for that certain genre. For example, the text that was used in 'All Of The Lights' by Rihanna, Kanye West and Kid Cudi you don't see that often, especially in such a fluorescent form, things like this are often found my in the genres of music such as dance/techno, which is why we intertwined similar ideas into our music video. As even though TBEP started off being quite RnB, they are gradually altering their genre in music to follow what is becoming more popular, adding drum and bass and autotuning their voices to sound more techno.

Most of the shots that were used is ensuring that we focus on each artist, as we are aiming to make this seem like the first music video that the band is done, so it is an introduction of characters, similar to the digipak and magazine, where we are all the main focus. the characters being the main focus of the video, digipak and magazine advert is similar to the promotion of artists shown in the genre of 'Pop', where is seem what is more important is that of the appearance of that artist and how appealing they are to the public, rather than the quality of the music so much. However in most cases, a music video is to draw in more of an audience and it is used as a marketing opportunity for the artists album.

Overall, I think we have intertwined the conventions of a variety of different genres into our music video, however overall, using:
- Studio Performance
- Narrative Performance
- Textual References
- Overlays and effects
we have managed to produce quite a developed and stereotypical music video, edited effectively to the beat to show of certain scenes and making it interesting. If we had had a slow video, in comparison to the constant changing beat of the song, it wouldn't obtain the audiences interest and even if there was good shots and plenty of editing in there, it would seem quite lazy and lifeless, whereas i think with our music video we have captured a lot of movement which allows the audiences attention to be continually captured.

Magazine Advert

This is magazine advert that we came up with! The reason for the neon colours is to match the futuristic neon colours that we use in our music video, which we also used for the digipak. We used the font 'Transformers' that was downloaded from dafont.com. This font was used in our music video multiple times, hence why it is being used  in this ancillary task also. There is a barcode that smartphones accept which we are aiming to be linked to the internet to give the audience more information about the up and coming album. This barcode also shows the target audience that we are aiming for - youthful, and technology based. The majority of over 50's would probably be unable to understand scanning barcodes into your smartphone, let alone what a smartphone is. We also added reviews from credited sources, as well as links to social networking sites where information, images and images can be viewed on the internet. We also created a record label ident as that is what most other posters have otherwise copyright is often breached.

Construction: Front Cover

Construction: Inlay

Construction: Inlay

Contruction: Back Cover

Creating The Digipak

We decided to go with a purple colour because we felt it was very eye catching a fluorescent. We also used the same text that was in our music video to be used in our digipak, as we think it should interlink. Like the digipak that we used for our inspiration, we simply put the tracks on the back like they did, and used a similar main image for the front cover, of all of us included, each in positions that are quite dominating.

Digipak Photoshoot

Digipak Inspiration

- Dominating image of all 4 of them together, introducing the characters and showing strength and character in each of them.

- Simple list of songs on the back of the digipak. Keeping it simple as inlay provides the detail.

- Inlay follows similar colour scheme as the font and the back, and rementioning the bands title again on the CD. Promoting it even further.

- Inlay image relates directly the title of the album.

Audience Feedback

I put our final cut version of the song onto Facebook to receive feedback from my friends and family, many of the comments were 'brilliant', 'well edited', however a couple of people commented on the bass and sound quality, and others also commented on it saying that at times we should have been more enthusiastic.

Showdown - Final Cut

Studio Footage

This is some shoots that were taken whilst we were trying to film. The studio was a massive challenge for us as we hadn't really experienced anything similar to it before. We set up 3 different cameras to get footage from various angles, so that when we edited it together the shots would be constantly changing. However when looking back on the shots that we actually used in our music videos, we mainly used the shots that were straight on, close ups. We also found the lighting that we used in the studio quite difficult as we had to constantly adjust it to make sure that the back drop was dark to highlight us to make us the main subject of the video, kind of like we were in a spotlight.

Showdown - Rough Cut

In this version of our video we realised that although we did do quite a few quick cuts throughout, we still don't feel that it is fast enough, or holds the audiences attention enough. This rough cut also made us realise quite how much more footage we really needed to capture as there were such large areas of blank throughout this.

To summarise:
- We need quicker cuts to make it more interesting.
- Add more footage to fill gaps.
- Make the video more complex, add more effects to keep the audience enticed.

Diary Update

Our filming is gradually being completed...

We started our filming by shooting some scenes at one another's houses. We tried to shoot each of us getting ready in different rooms as well as two different houses to give the impression that we were all in different areas. These were some decent shots as they ended up being filmed from similar angles so once we edited them all together they complimented each other. We decided that these shots will go in the beginning of the music video, and make it quickly cut to the drum beat that is the intro.

We have also filmed a lot of footage recently in the studio and captured a few really good shots. We have got shots of all of us 'singing' together, as well as separate shots, so that when we edit them all together there will be a wide variety of shots that once edited together will be different. We are now trying to edit it into a rough cut draft and it is working well, however we have grasped so much footage and from so many different angles that it is difficult to choose which ones would look best.

Filming the Narrative

We realised half way through our filming that we were lacking a bit of narrative... So we decided that we needed some shots of the charachters walking to the venue where there would be the 'Showdown'. A variation of shot angles were used to try and portray the strength in each of the characters, yet sometimes high angle shots were used to try and show the audience how vulnerable one of us was away from the group.

Recent Update

We are also using text within our music video, similar to the text that is used throughout the music video of Kanye West, Rihanna and Kid Cudi; 'All of the Lights'. This music video was based on the opening credits of 'Enter the Void'. This text is quick cut and very effective, especially using the fluorescent colours. We want to make the text that we use in ours changing constantly to the beat to make it interesting and to show off our editing skills. It will be used in the countdown which is shown in the bridge of the song.