Evaluation - Joe

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

To get the highest grade possible, we had to use and develop ideas from real music videos in order to make ours look like its been done to a professional standard. This took a lot of research in to the indie/rock genre as we needed to get everything right from storyline to performance. This meant looking at costume, lighting, camera movements and other forms of mise en scene. Our main inspiration was the video by 'We the Kings' called 'Skyway Avenue'. After researching heavily into the story lines of the indie genre, we found out that most had the concept of boy and girl out on the town, boy hits on girl, they start flirting, fall in love and go home together all following Todorov's theory. Obviously there are a lot of different variations of this but this seemed to be the main style of plot. After finding this out we all agreed to keep to the traditional pick up story line. In the Skyway Avenue video, the video starts the morning after they had been to town or in a club (we presume) but we wanted to change that so we adapted the story line so that we showed the night that the two people met. This was an example of us using something and developing it to fit within our song however you could argue that we didn't fully meet todorov's theory as there wasn't enough footage there to meet all aspects of it. I do however feel that this was due to limited amount of filming time we had due to unseen events taking place with our actors. The performance aspect was also heavily influenced by the skyway avenue video however we also got some shot ideas from the 'bowling for soup' video, '1985'. In this video there a quite a few shots of the camera looking in at the band in a garage, from the outside. We liked this shot so we took it and developed it some more to fit with what we were trying to do. In their video they have it to look like the house is owned by well off American citizen with the mise en scene that they have used i.e. basketball  hoop and electric garage. Well we liked the shot but realised we had to change the mise en scene to make ours look like an urban, underground garage to fit within the indie genre. We did this by changing the layout of Patrick's garage by moving all expensive looking things out of sight and moving ladders, stools, old filing cabinets around so that we could continue our image as a band who hasn't made it yet. It wasn't only the mise en scene that we developed, it was actual shots as well. In the skyway avenue video there was this fantastic shot where the camera zooms in to the drummer clapping the high hat. Well we tried filming this a couple of times but the drum kit was layed out so we couldn't get everything in. So instead we filmed this shot but from a low angle and zooming out instead. This allowed us to get all of the drummer in and half of the drum kit which ultimately looked better when we came to edit it. During our editing we looked closely at challenging the regular indie storyline. Normally in an indie music video the lighting is very low key (kooks - naive/she moves in her own way), especially in the narrative and pretty much the same with the performance. Well we wanted to challenge this and have some light scenes. For example the lighting in the narrative (pub) is pretty light and the same with the performance. In the performance aspect we had 2 lights directly facing me to create this image of a light shining on us. This to give off the feeling that our big break as a band is coming soon but there are still some dark struggles to come before you get there. The lighting was so important to get right as we wanted that binary opposition of light vs dark.


How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I feel that the combination of our digipack worked really well with our main products. Whilst filming our main product we wanted to go with the rough, urban, underground indie look and we didn't want to lose that whilst making the ancillary. this is why i think each image done was successful as we didn't lose our image and pulled off a professional looking digipak. The front cover was taken and adapted from the blurr CD. We wanted something simple, something indie and this was perfect. Indie (recently) is all about fitting in with everyone else but having a little bit of Independence so what better way to have a front cover with all band members pretty much doing the same thing but with our own twist on it. Indie is all about simplicity as well with simple colours, this is why we cleverly chose the black and white imagery (all fitting in) but with different colour tshirts and funny faces (Little bit of Independence). This I feel was a successful image as we stuck to what we set out to do. Our next image was the one of the lead singer, in the style of a mug shot holding up an anti political message. This shot uses humour to appeal to our audience, attracting them to our band. We have used binary oppositions heavily in this image but still sticking to the indie style. The use of the tshirt gives that indie casual look, nothing too strange or different to show that we're following by everyone Else's rules (especially with the tie). However the message on the board is a funny anti political message that is showing the little independence that indie allows you to have, especially with the use of the anarchy 'A'. This again keeping to our indie, urban, simple and safe image. The Spin image is perfect for linking to our main product. Its a brick wall with the title of our band written down it. This directly relates to the urban, under ground image that we set out to achieve in our main task by using the garage. The back cover was perfect. We didn't want something directly related to the performance as after research we found out not many bands do that, but we wanted something that related to the genre. Converse has recently become a symbol of the indie scene and that's why is was perfect to use. We didn't have a converse with fancy colours on and we didn't use a fancy background. This because we wanted it to be simple, fit in with anything else, this directly relating to how we all dressed in the performance aspect and the inside CD slot. This image was the picture of our band in the setting where we filmed. This worked best as it shows we don't have the money to go out and do photo shoots because we are just a band practising in an urban garage (exactly what we were filming in, in the performance). The final image is one we would stick in the back page of the book, the festival image. Now this image is only there to show our love for music. We thought this could work well as we also tried to show our love for music in the music video. We tried to do this by the lead singer dancing and moving as well as the guitarists. This image then relates to the performance aspect of our video.


What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Our audience feed back was very helpful. We had lots of good comments and improvements suggested to us. The general view of the good points were all based on performance. People liked how we took to the task of getting the image and setting right. They liked how we found a good setting and really research everything from clothing to lighting. We were complimented on the variety of shots used and the movement of the camera. We've learnt that the camera movement is important as before the second time round filming of the performance, we had many people issue the fact that was hardly any movement. Luckily we learnt that from the feedback mid way through the task otherwise we wouldn't have been able to gone out the second time and get the exact shots we needed. The improvements were something to take note of as it was mainly things to do with the narrative. Mainly the issue was with the lighting in both the pub and the walking home. For some they said the pub was too bright for the Friday night setting we went for and the fact that there weren't many extras in the background. The walk home was mentioned a lot. Most people said the lighting was wrong for a couple of shots as it was too dark. (noted on Ellie's evaluation video). In some of our shots people also said that the camera went blurry from where it was too dark. Some said they liked that as it caused a drunk effect where as others said they would have preferred it if it was a clear shot. Overall i think we learnt that lighting is key when it comes to narrative and we really should have tried to add extra lighting when walking through the high street. I think we learnt that we shouldn't just accept it as the lighting is out of our hands as its a public place and we should have taken more time and effort and maybe thought of more ways to add a bit of light. We've also learnt that camera movement is key. Before we got the feedback mid way through our editing we knew something didn't look right but we couldn't spot it, and when we got told about the movement we could fix it. We've learnt that camera angels are also especially important in the performance aspect as they are essentially what makes it feel like a music video and not just some guys being filmed in a garage. We can take away from the feedback the it's the little things that make a good video, great. If we do this again we will all now look for ways to increase the lighting, or dim the lighting to make sure that everything is 100% clear and not blurry unless we plan it that way.


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

 New media technologies have been used in out group from the very begining. We were first assigned the task of analysing music videos on the mac books in preperation for a seding task. This meant using MacBooks and youtube to repeatedly review any music video of our choice. these techologies allowed us to play and pause videos at any time giving us a chance to analyse every shot for its mise en scene making sure that we don't miss anything. After this task we were asked to set up a blog on blogger to keep a track record of everything that we've done this year. This new techonology allowed us to store information and post videos/links to give viewers a better idea of what we were talking about. After much research on music videos we had to take digital cameras and film our chosen music video. Fortunately we only had to film 30 seconds and it didn't have to be perfect, we just had to get used to all the equipment again and all the new software we would be using. The digital camera allowed us to record our filming with a good quality picture, This gave us a more professional looking video and we would be using this media technology for a while to come. Once filming was completewe would upload it to the MacBooks and import it in to final cut. Final cut is what we used to edit both our main product and our sweding product. We spent hours on this programme cutting down clips, trying to get the timing right and placing them all in order. This allowed us to get a professional looking video with clean cuts and if needed, different transitions. This also allowed us to make our long clips in to sub clips giving us an oportunity to see each shot individually and give it a name, ultimately making our lives a lot easier and the process a lot quicker. Bluetooth was another technology used in the process. We used this to transfer files from our phones to the MacBooks for example, Ellie and I recorded a video blog and uploaded it to the MacBooks via Blue tooth. This is also how we got most of our DigiPack photos on the blog as well, via bluetooth. We used microsoft word to edit and add some titles to the Front cover of our CD and we did the same for the information/credits page as well. Photoshop was used to create the frontcover and get the colours and the black and white tones in the same image. We needed a good editing programme to do this as we wanted it to look professional. Microsoft excell was by Ellie to create charts for the blog. This was also done by a high quality programme as we wanted a professional finish. Prezi and smile box was used by the group to get extra bits of media on our blog. These are two presentation websites that you can use for free to give you a funky finish on your blog. To create some of the digipak i had to use southpark editor to get the avatar looking image. Although we didn't use the image it was still a new techonology that was used in our media. Finally the tri-pod (if it counts as new technology). The tri-pod was used in nearly every section of filming. This allowed us to get steady shots when needed and allowed us to pan the camera easier.

Overall i feel this project was a success. I feel that we created a professional looking music video that met the criteria that we set. Our digipak was well made with professional programmes to ensure that we had a high quality finish to our photos. I think the blogging went well for the most part although i would have liked to do more if i could. I feel if i had been consistantly doing blogs then i would achieve a higher grade rather than all my blogs coming at once. In the end i feel that we managed the task well and recovered what we did well as a few weeks before, our whole project could have ended in an untter fail. If we could do one thing again it would be the narrative. I feel if we had changed the lighting a little then our project would have gained more marks and the final outcome would have been better. The user feedback helped us change out project for the better but with a little more time i feel that we could have vastley improved our project. In conclusion i feel this project was a success and we met the criteria that was set for us to a high standard.