Storyboard Reflection

After completing the music video we looked through our storyboard again to compare the differences between our original plan and our actual music video.

In the end our video was nothing like our plan as we had no car scene nor a stage scene this was due to not having access to a car to film the car scenes and not being able to use the drama studio for the stage scene, so we couldn't use that.

Despite not shooting the autumn section in our intended location we were still able to shoot it in the forest at college, we also used more locations than we had planned.

We also had to replace all the outside dancers and group members with hope so we could film more effectively during lessons, and therefore film more things that we needed to film. 

Despite not following our plan i think our video turned out better than if we had followed our original plan.

Mercury Music Awards

I think James Blake is a Soulful artist.  I believe this because of the way the shadow hides half of his face and he looks like he is staring into the distance and is deep in thought. This gives him a mysterious look as well as the fact that he is wearing dark clothes. He has cool hair that looks like a birds nest. His nose has extra meaning because it is as if he is also frowning and thinking about soulful things. Because the image is set out side, and because it is set in autumn, James Blake has a hoboish aura, which makes it seem like he is getting his ideas from his outdoor surroundings. 

James Blake James Blake Lindisfarne

The characteristics of the video are based around a narrative with James Blake singing to the camera through part of it. This meets the needs of the record label because there a lots of close ups of the artist. This also has characteristics of the soulful genre because he is singing directly to the audience and shows he is speaking his mind. He is wistful.

James Blake was born in London in 1989. He specializes in electronic, soulful, dubstep. He studied popular music at Goldsmiths university in London with Katy B.

Blake debuted collaboration with Bon Iver called "Fall Creek Boys Choir" on BBC Radio 1 at 7:30pm GMT on 24 August 2011. His self-titled album, James Blake, reached number 9 in the UK album charts and number 1 in Belgium. 

VMA awards

Best Pop Video

Katy Perry – Last Friday Night

We choose Last Friday Night because it was our overall favourite of the five we watched, this was because the video had a central storyline which kept it interesting and provided a reason to keep watching. The lyrics closely matched the visuals for example, at the beginning of the video the lyrics describe waking up with a hangover not remembering much from the night before, which is shown through some photos that were posted online this is also voyeurism as it shows elements of the party before you see the full details. There is many close-ups of the artist to advertise the artist and her work, the video also contained a wii with just dance which helps advertise the game and also contained cameos of Rebecca Black and people from Glee which would help attract a wider audience.

The editing in the music video was quite fast paced continuity editing because it followed the story. It also switches between past and present, before and after the party. The titles at the start make it feel like a film or TV programme and advertise Katy Perry and her record label. In the video there is a lot of zoom and panning shots to show you lots of details of the props used etc. They use over the shoulder shots so that Katy Perry is always in the frame. When Katy Perry is dressed up to look like a nerd they film her with high angle shots to make her look inferior, whereas after her makeover they use lots of low angle shots to make her look superior, they also dress her in lots of very bright neon colours to make sure the viewers attention is always on her. The video is very colourful and bright which shows the liveliness of the pop genre, the dancing that is featured also helps this.

We both like this because it’s a new take on a Music Video, it makes it feel like a film and also it’s just funny. 

Director's Commentary Final

Directors Commentary Script

We have decided that there are two ways for us to show our director's commentary. The first choice is to talk over the video, allowing us to reference to what is going on at that moment in time. The other choice is to film us talking about the project, with the media products we will be referencing, being shown on screen in a corner so that the audience will know what area we will be talking about. We think that the first option would be harder to do, as we would need to record a continuous clip to keep in time with the music video. There are also certain time constraints when we will be talking over the music video since it is only around 3 minutes long. Because of this, and because of the added features that can be included in the second option, we think it would be a better idea to use this as the basic format for our director's commentary.

Commentary Key
Ashley
Hope
Michael

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

challenged the conventions in terms of non-voyeuristic clothing during the verses and having a single singer rather than the whole girl group.
followed conventions by having a dance routine as well as multiple close-ups and various costumes changes.
for the magazine advert and the digipak we followed the conventions of a real set of ancillary products, by having a relating background image and a recurring theme throughout

Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

talk about recurring theme of autumn and the leaf motif and having hope as the main feature
talk about inclusion of tour dates and bonus content for audience interaction
bright colours to attract attention

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

Rough cut - eye opening - Examples
Realised what was wrong
Final cut - largely positive and encouraging - Examples

Question 4 - How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research and planning and evaluation stages?

talk about HD cameras - how we used them - why
final cut - how - why
photoshop - how - why

Independant Evaluation

1. I think our music video challenged the conventions of real music products to some degree as our video ended up being almost like a vlog with the head and upper body framing that was used during the close-ups. Apart from this our video used the conventions of a girl group pop song despite our video only having the one artist. For our ancillary products we used bright colours that would be similar to the pop genre. We also included images of our artist which helped match the genre. During our research we analysed various videos of the pop group, The Saturdays, and had planned to use this as full inspiration, almost mimicking the styling of their videos. Although we didn't use the full styling, we did get the idea of running with the autumnal theme for one of their videos.

2. I believe that our video works well with our digipak and magazine advert because they have a very clear crossover theme of autumn with parts of the video being shot in a forest location. The forest theme was also used for our digipak as the photo we used for our wrap-around cover was shot in the same location as the video. The track listing and the bonus content on the back were placed in the outline of leaves as we thought this was a good motif to follow through with into our magazine ad. Along with this we placed the tour dates on a pile of leaves and then created the background to match this by making the background full of leaves in black and white. Using the leaf motif throughout our products allows them to work together really effectively as a promotional package. Due to the bright colours and simplicity of the design I believe it would be very efective at attracting the target audience.

3. Throughout the production of our product, we have had many stages of feedback which have allowed our products to progress and improve. The feedback we had received on our pitch was that we should use the same girls throughtout the video to prevent alienation and to have back-up locations as well. Our rough cut was put together quite hastily as we found we needed a complete overhaul of our plan as it was no longer feasible to do what we wished to do. Due to this feedback was more negative then we would've liked but we also received positive feedback on what we wanted to keep in. We took in the feedback when we reshot for our final cut. Due to this the final cut feedback was a lot more favourable and showed us what we had done well which was primarily good lip-syncing, the dance routine and good variation of shots and locations.

4. We used a variety of technologies during the whole production of our video. During the research and planning process we used blogger to demonstrate our whole thought process and to catalogue the reasearch we had done to garner inspiration. For the actual filming and editing of our video we used a HD camera, to make sure the raw video was of the highest possible quality. Final cut was also use to allow us semi-professional techniques to make our video as good as possible. For our ancillary products we used photoshop to create them and a stills camera to take the photos. Having access to all this technology allowed us full creative roaming and didn't limit our creativity in any way.

All in all I'm really happy with how our video and ancillary products came out. They could be improved with more time but in the time frame we had I believe we created the best video and ancillary products we could.

Magazine Advert and Digipak - Final

Final Cut

Analysis of magazine ad conventions

There are a variety of conventions associated with magazine adverts. This includes:
Having an image or background that has a link with the music video or the album cover. It also needs to include certain bits of information such as the release date of the album which is often displayed in a bold font. Other information that we will need to include is the place of purchase for the album, the artists name and the name of the record label, and positive reviews about the album. We would also need to include tour information and some details of the bonus content within the DigiPak or album that is being advertised. The font on the magazine advert is generally continuous throughout the ad, with the band's name being the only exception.
In order to attract customers, our magazine advert would need to include persuasive and eye catching images and pieces of text. Our genre would need to be reflected in the magazine advert using the font, text, colour and the images.

Use of narrative in our music video

These are some ideas that we thought about using for the narrative of our music video.

• Day dreaming
• normal college students
• transformed to super star girl band
• famous
• dance routine
• happy

Final Cut So Far

This is a few screen grabs of our rough cut video. As you can see, we have shot a wide variety of clips so that we have lots of footage to choose from. We are also using a lot of layers in our video which reflects the fast pace of the song, having lots of clips running over each other in order to make the video flow nicely.

Analysis of Seize Them! Digipak

This digipak is very effective, as the wrap-around cover works really well with what looks to be robots shouting the band's name but is also an order which works really well as depending on how you look at the cover the speech could be perceived either way. there is also a shot of the band inside behind the CD which is clever as it means that every time the purchaser wants to listen to the CD they see the band, which keeps the purchaser with the band's image in their minds.

The back cover is very simple with just the track listing as well as a website and record label information, the inside cover looks to contain more information about the band and their exploits.

Analysis of a student magazine ad

The group that made this magazine advert met a lot of conventions that are attributed to the genre. They have included the title and image of the artist, which meets the needs of the record label, as well as including important information about the artist, giving a release date, some reviews for the album and a website if people want to find out more. We believe that, although the image is strong, the lack of colour apart from the lipstick makes the whole advert seem dull. Also, with the information in a small font at the bottom of the advert, it gives the impression that it was added as an afterthought and doesn't grab the attention of the audience enough. We think that this magazine advert is lacking some bits of information, such as the production company and record label. it also doesn't include the relevant info for things like the price of the album or where it will be available to buy. the inclusion of the McDonalds logo gives the impression of product placement, but also affects how customers would think of the album because of what McDonalds represents.

Photoshoot

This is our photo shoot for our ancillary products. These were taken with the digipak in mind, with the shape of the tree benefiting the layout of the digipak that we wanted. We wanted to have Hope on the front cover of the digipak, with the branch extending onto the back of the product to have a continuos landscape around the digipak. The tree that we used in the Digipak was good because it left a clear space  beneath the branch which allowed us to put all the product information and to layer on any other images that we wanted. The colour of the tree was also good because it was bright and clear, which contradicted the clothes Hope was wearing which enabled her to stand out against the background more. As well as the long shots we took for the digipak, we also took a few close ups. This would be for the magazine advert as we wanted Hope to be the main feature of the product rather than mixing in with the background. As it turns out, we held a separate photo shoot to get more close ups of Hope in a different location. This is because we thought that the images would be too similar for all the products including the music video. We thought that if we had more locations we would be able to expand the product range more and have more variety in our products.

Ideas for digipak

The ideas we have had for our digipak are:

• We have decided to use the DVD layout for our digipak
• We will include bonus content such as lyrics, tour dates of the artist and some posters of the group
• On the front cover we will have the name of the artist and songs as well as an image of the artist
• On the back, there will be a track listing, website information, the record label and a barcode
• Within the digipak, we will have the tour dates . 
• We have also  decided to advertise a competition for the customers to enter.
• We will use Autumnal colours to match with the group name 
• We will include various shots of the artist, but we won't have the same picture repeated to stop everything being confused for the other

Magazine Advert and Digipak Themes

We have decided to centre the magazine advert and digipak around nature. This is because it relates to the artist "Autumn" and some of the shots throughout the music video. At the moment, we are undecided as to whether or not we will shoot new photos to include, or to adapt still shots from our video. We have decided  to have Hope as the only person in the images as she was the lead in the music video and therefore the centre of the audiences attention.

The Digipak will have the CD layout so that we can include bonus content such as lyrics and tour dates. On the front cover we will have the name of the artist and songs as well as an image of the artist. On the back, there will be a track listing, website information, the record label and a barcode. We have decided against including an age rating on our digipak because it only applies to DVDs and this is just a music video. Within the digipak, we will have the tour dates of the artist, some posters of the group. We have also  decided to advertise a competition for the customers to enter.
We have later decided to use the DVD layout for our digipak so that we can use the template already on the computers in order to save time.

The magazine advert will include the institutional information including the record label, the price of the digipak and the location to buy it. We will also include some reviews of the digipak and the release date and the website information. We will also be including an image of the artist again without the dancers in  the background in order to emphasize the fact that Hope is the lead of the group.

External Feedback Reflection

We were able to get some external feedback on our rough cut video during the open evening. The person we talked to addressed the points of editing, camerawork, performance and general observations. This person got to see the new footage that we were going to put in and included a few comments on the new areas.
Editing
The person that we asked thought that overall, the editing of the rough cut was very good and well synced in time with the music. He did point out that one section of the rough cut was out of time but we were able to sort that out so that everything ran smoothly.
Camerwork
Like the peer feedback we recieved, the person that saw our rough cut on the open evening thought that the pan shots of the trees were a bit shaky. We decided that we would keep these shots in the video because we didn't have enough time to re-shoot and it would be difficult to keep the camera steady on the terrain that we were filming. Because this was only the rough cut, we hadn't been able to include all of our footage for the external viewer to see. Although this is the case, the person that watched our video said that there was not enough variation in the shots but the lighting in the video was good and the new footage that we shot helped by adding more camera angles to the video.
Performance
The feedback that we recieved for the performance was generally positive. This person said that the dance routine and acting was good overall, with it lip synced well although some areas of the dance routine were out of time slightly.
Other
There wasn't many other observations that the external peer brought up apart from the fact that, in the new footage, the people in the video can be seen walking towards a floodlight. After he brought this up, it was explained to him that it could be edited out or in such a way that you cannot notice it. His general impression was that the video was very good and the that the finished product would be good as well.

External Consumer Feedback

During the open evening, we showed our work to some of the visitors in order to get their external opinions and improvements as to what can be done to it.
editing
one area out of sync
pretty good editing
well synced in time with the music
camerawork
pan shot at the start bit shaky
not enough variety in camera-shots
the lighting in general and the new footage was good
performance
lip syncing good in general
dance routine wasn't always symmetrical although it was good
acting was good
other
for the stuff recorded on open day, walking towards a petrol light.

Reflection of Amar's feedback

We received a lot of helpful feedback from Amar, who is a technician at our college and is also a professional music video director, for the rough cut of our music video. By having someone like Amar give feedback on our work, we were able to go into more depth with what we needed to change based on his opinions and suggestions. He was able to comment in more depth than other pieces of feedback because he was able to point out areas that needed to be changed and what can be done to change them, rather than general comments and suggestions that we have received.
He said that our introduction was very good because it doesn't reveal too much of the music video and therefore grabs the audiences attention and makes them want to see more. For this introduction, Amar noted that this section runs into the vocals of the song and should be changed into shots of the artist singing. We have listened to this and shot a new piece of footage that includes the artist singing the introduction directly to the camera. This meets Amar's feedback as well as adding to the Goodwin's theory by having close ups to meet the needs of record label.
Like the peer feedback, Amar said that there was need to establish a main singer separate from the dance routine. We sorted this out by shooting the lyrics of the song on a separate occasion, using different costumes, to make the main singer stand out. We also were able to establish the main singer more by filming a new dance routine with her at the centre. This emphasized her lead role within the group because she would now be in the majority of the final video.
Amar said that we should alter the dance routine for each chorus. this would allow the video to progress along with the music rather than having the same clip repeated throughout the video. We managed to resolve this with the extra footage shot on opening evening, by using a variety of camera angles to help make up the dance routine.
On the editing side, Amar thought that it was very good that Ashley had marked up the timeline of the video so that it is easier to edit according to things like the chorus or certain parts of the song. This helped during the editing process because it enabled us to put new clips in according to the marks rather than having to find the right place in the song.
Amar thought that the video was good overall but there should be more performances included to match the genre of the song and that there should be a big climax to signify the end of the song. We think that we have taken this feedback on board and have managed to include more performances and edited the song so that it ends on a climax.

Amar's feedback

We received feedback from Amar, one of the technicians at the college who is also a professional music video director. This professional advice helped because he went into more depth with his comments and suggestions rather than making general statements.
good intro, sets the scene well grabs the attention of the audience. overruns into vocals - change with artist singing
establish the band better at the start, no main singer
more performances before showing the narrative.
chorus/dance routine alter for each chorus
marked up well so that the timeline fits properly
more performances
big climax to end the song