Friday 7 May 2010
Thursday 6 May 2010
Evaluation
In what ways did your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In our research we found that artists of the electronic/ambient genre a lot of the time simply did not have pop promos for their songs, so we decided to challenge this and make one for our artist! Those that did have music videos tended to have concept based music videos compared with narrative or performance based – we again decided to challenge this and go with a narrative based pop promo. An example of this was Four Tet’s video for “Hands” – it is meant as an accompaniment for the music and not a video in its own right, they want their music to be the talking point and not the music video. Of course we didn’t just want the video to be the talking point and not the music, but we felt that a narrative based video would help to promote our artist and target our audience a lot more effectively. The main convention we challenged was the issue of homosexuality in music videos, it is rare that you see same sex couples in music videos and when you do it is usually glamorised and just to to cause a stir to get media publicity for the artist, so we decided to have our couple as two women but film it no differently than if we were filming a heterosexual couple, to encourage acceptance and diversity.
We liked the use of colour in videos of this genre, which give a bright and almost psychedelic feel sometimes, and developed this in our pop promo when thinking about the Mise en Scene (so we had the bright, colourful bar scenes etc). We also developed some ideas on the use of timelapse that we’d seen in several pop promos of the electronic genre, such as Four Tet’s “She Moves She” which features timelapse of a train traveling, and the concept of time seemed to appear a lot in music videos of this genre.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
When making our music video, cd cover and magazine advert, we had to remember that the brief was to make a music promotional package – not just 3 totally separate pieces. Keeping this in mind, the main linking themes we chose between the pieces that were represented are time, movement and the contrast between nature and urban environments. For example, we had timelapsed shots of traffic on a road in our music video, and then this linked to our cd cover and magazine advert with photographs of a road with traffic in, but with the shutter speeds slowed down to give a long exposure effect where you cant see the cars but just the lights from when they go past. This highlighted the linking theme of movement and energy in each of the pieces.
All three pieces had quite an artistic, modern stylish feel to them, because of the close attention we paid to the colours that featured in the video and in the print ads. The bar scene especially showed this, and the long shot I used when filming really helped to show all the mixture of colours and warm tones in the scene, like the below screenshot shows:
The representations we created were realism, that the audience could relate to. In our music video two young attractive homosexual women are represented, they are shown as being educated, middle class and flirtatious – we created this representation to show that it doesn’t have to be just your average man and women fancying each other as you see 99% of the time in mainstream music videos. In the CD cover, Lawrence King is represented as a young mysterious, anonymous male, who is standing outside a middle class suburban house, indicating that he himself is middle class and educated, like the women in the music video. This again helps to draw the pieces together, however looking back I think it really would of helped if either Lawrence King appeared in the music video, or the two women were shown on the print ads, as this would of helped really link them together as being a promotional package rather than three separate pieces.
Music video:
In our primary research, we found out that 75% of respondents to the questionnaire liked to see a music video with a narrative, compared with a performance or concept based video. Based on this, we made our music video with a strong narrative, and received a lot of positive feedback from the class about how it was clear to follow and the fact we had done it with flashbacks at the start of the day came across clearly, and that we focused enough on the two women to make it obvious who the story was about.
The main point I learnt, especially with me being the cinematographer, was that a video full of different shot sizes and types really helps to keep the audience engaged throughout, particularly when you use some experimental cinematography like I decided to do when I filmed some shots in the bar with the camera behind a chair made of metal mesh, giving an interesting voyeuristic effect.
The class appreciated that generally throughout the whole music video the shots were well framed, and the panning shots were smooth, giving the video an overall professional finish. I learnt that by paying careful attention to the shots you are filming and making sure they are correct, then you can end up with a film that doesn’t look amateurish.
Another area that received lots of positive praise from our class as well as Lawrence himself, was the fast motion traffic scenes. The class mentioned that it was in time with the tempo of the music, and similarly Lawrence said that the speed of the timelapse pace suited the track well.
Criticisms of our video included the fact that some of the bedroom scenes were too dark. This could have been overcome if we had paid more careful attention to the lighting in the room at the time of filming, and the level of exposure on the camera, something that I will spend more time making sure is at the correct level if we film in the future. A final criticism from the class was the lack of representation of an artist in the video, and that it would helped aide the promotion of Lawrence King by having him included in the video. This I do agree with and in hindsight having the artist in the music video would have been a good way to promote him, as well as to link our video more closely with the print adverts, which featured him (albeit in an anonymous form).
CD Cover:
The interesting use of typography on the front of the CD Cover where the words "Lawrence" "King" and "Night" have been combined was reacted very positively to by the class, and they felt that by putting the word "Night" (the album name) in white it made it stand out clearly and was easy to read. I was pleased that the class picked up on the fact that the warm colours of the sunset used corrosponded with the warm colours of the music video (especially the bar scenes) and this again reinforced to me that people appreciate making a link between the different pieced in the promotional package and so it is good to have them linking together with a common theme.
The class really liked the fact that we represented Lawrence King in the inside cover, and the fact that he was standing outside a typical 1960’s semi-detached house, as a few members of the class lived in houses similar to that themselves which goes to show that it can be a good thing to try and represent your audience in the video that they watch so that they can relate to being in the persons world.
Magazine Advert:
One slight criticism our audience mentioned was that perhaps some of the writing on the magazine advert could have been in a different colour to make it a little clearer to read. We could have overcome this by doing lots of different versions of the advert, changing the text colour on each one then see which one is easier to read.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the project, I have learnt about many different types of technology and software, some I had come across before and some I had never previously used. During the research stage of the project, I watched many different pop promos on the video website YouTube to gain and idea of the codes and conventions of music videos for different genres of music. I also viewed some music videos that students had made for their A2 Media Studies coursework on YouTube which was a good way to gain inspiration and see how they had responded to the brief we were given. I used the photo sharing website Flickr, as well as Google Images to research print adverts that different artist had used to promote themselves (CD Covers, magazine adverts, posters, flyers etc). I also scanned some images into my computer using a Canon scanner, of print adverts that I’d found in magazines, then uploaded them to my blog.
In the planning stage of the project, I set up this blog to display my research, planning and evaluation, using Blogger which I have found to be an excellent blog making website as it is simple to use and yet my blog still looks professional. As I was cinematographer in the group, I used the online encyclopedia Wikipedia to refresh my memory on the different rules and guidelines of film-making, such at the Rule of Thirds and the 180 degree rule. We used the social networking website Facebook to send questionnaires to our artist and communicate with him about how we were progressing with making his promotional package.
During production, we filmed using a CANON HV30 DV Camcorder on a VELBON DV-7000 tripod - we did not need a microphone as we didn’t need to record sound. We also used a 100W light in the bedroom scenes. Jessica (our editor) then captured our footage off of the camcorder onto the computer and logged it, and then edited our music video using Adobe Premier Pro, which we found to be of a very high standard but also simple to use. Lastly, we compressed the film into a .WMV (Windows Media Video) file type to make it a smaller file size and thus more accessible on the web. Being the cinematographer of the group (last year I was in charge of the Mise-En-Scene) I found learning to use the camcorder a slight challenge as I had to learn how to control all the different effects, such as exposure, aperture and white balance, but overall it was fairly simple to use after some practice.
To make our CD Cover and magazine advert, we used Adobe Photoshop CS4. I have had experience of using this before (GCSE Art etc) so knew how to use the Layer tools to create an image with multiple images and text items etc, and found that the software allows you to create designs with a very professional look to them. Nicole took the original photographs using a digital SLR camera.
In our research we found that artists of the electronic/ambient genre a lot of the time simply did not have pop promos for their songs, so we decided to challenge this and make one for our artist! Those that did have music videos tended to have concept based music videos compared with narrative or performance based – we again decided to challenge this and go with a narrative based pop promo. An example of this was Four Tet’s video for “Hands” – it is meant as an accompaniment for the music and not a video in its own right, they want their music to be the talking point and not the music video. Of course we didn’t just want the video to be the talking point and not the music, but we felt that a narrative based video would help to promote our artist and target our audience a lot more effectively. The main convention we challenged was the issue of homosexuality in music videos, it is rare that you see same sex couples in music videos and when you do it is usually glamorised and just to to cause a stir to get media publicity for the artist, so we decided to have our couple as two women but film it no differently than if we were filming a heterosexual couple, to encourage acceptance and diversity.
We liked the use of colour in videos of this genre, which give a bright and almost psychedelic feel sometimes, and developed this in our pop promo when thinking about the Mise en Scene (so we had the bright, colourful bar scenes etc). We also developed some ideas on the use of timelapse that we’d seen in several pop promos of the electronic genre, such as Four Tet’s “She Moves She” which features timelapse of a train traveling, and the concept of time seemed to appear a lot in music videos of this genre.How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
When making our music video, cd cover and magazine advert, we had to remember that the brief was to make a music promotional package – not just 3 totally separate pieces. Keeping this in mind, the main linking themes we chose between the pieces that were represented are time, movement and the contrast between nature and urban environments. For example, we had timelapsed shots of traffic on a road in our music video, and then this linked to our cd cover and magazine advert with photographs of a road with traffic in, but with the shutter speeds slowed down to give a long exposure effect where you cant see the cars but just the lights from when they go past. This highlighted the linking theme of movement and energy in each of the pieces.
All three pieces had quite an artistic, modern stylish feel to them, because of the close attention we paid to the colours that featured in the video and in the print ads. The bar scene especially showed this, and the long shot I used when filming really helped to show all the mixture of colours and warm tones in the scene, like the below screenshot shows:
The representations we created were realism, that the audience could relate to. In our music video two young attractive homosexual women are represented, they are shown as being educated, middle class and flirtatious – we created this representation to show that it doesn’t have to be just your average man and women fancying each other as you see 99% of the time in mainstream music videos. In the CD cover, Lawrence King is represented as a young mysterious, anonymous male, who is standing outside a middle class suburban house, indicating that he himself is middle class and educated, like the women in the music video. This again helps to draw the pieces together, however looking back I think it really would of helped if either Lawrence King appeared in the music video, or the two women were shown on the print ads, as this would of helped really link them together as being a promotional package rather than three separate pieces.What did you learn from your audience feedback?
Music video:
In our primary research, we found out that 75% of respondents to the questionnaire liked to see a music video with a narrative, compared with a performance or concept based video. Based on this, we made our music video with a strong narrative, and received a lot of positive feedback from the class about how it was clear to follow and the fact we had done it with flashbacks at the start of the day came across clearly, and that we focused enough on the two women to make it obvious who the story was about.
The main point I learnt, especially with me being the cinematographer, was that a video full of different shot sizes and types really helps to keep the audience engaged throughout, particularly when you use some experimental cinematography like I decided to do when I filmed some shots in the bar with the camera behind a chair made of metal mesh, giving an interesting voyeuristic effect.
The class appreciated that generally throughout the whole music video the shots were well framed, and the panning shots were smooth, giving the video an overall professional finish. I learnt that by paying careful attention to the shots you are filming and making sure they are correct, then you can end up with a film that doesn’t look amateurish.
Another area that received lots of positive praise from our class as well as Lawrence himself, was the fast motion traffic scenes. The class mentioned that it was in time with the tempo of the music, and similarly Lawrence said that the speed of the timelapse pace suited the track well.
Criticisms of our video included the fact that some of the bedroom scenes were too dark. This could have been overcome if we had paid more careful attention to the lighting in the room at the time of filming, and the level of exposure on the camera, something that I will spend more time making sure is at the correct level if we film in the future. A final criticism from the class was the lack of representation of an artist in the video, and that it would helped aide the promotion of Lawrence King by having him included in the video. This I do agree with and in hindsight having the artist in the music video would have been a good way to promote him, as well as to link our video more closely with the print adverts, which featured him (albeit in an anonymous form).
CD Cover:
The interesting use of typography on the front of the CD Cover where the words "Lawrence" "King" and "Night" have been combined was reacted very positively to by the class, and they felt that by putting the word "Night" (the album name) in white it made it stand out clearly and was easy to read. I was pleased that the class picked up on the fact that the warm colours of the sunset used corrosponded with the warm colours of the music video (especially the bar scenes) and this again reinforced to me that people appreciate making a link between the different pieced in the promotional package and so it is good to have them linking together with a common theme.
The class really liked the fact that we represented Lawrence King in the inside cover, and the fact that he was standing outside a typical 1960’s semi-detached house, as a few members of the class lived in houses similar to that themselves which goes to show that it can be a good thing to try and represent your audience in the video that they watch so that they can relate to being in the persons world.Magazine Advert:
One slight criticism our audience mentioned was that perhaps some of the writing on the magazine advert could have been in a different colour to make it a little clearer to read. We could have overcome this by doing lots of different versions of the advert, changing the text colour on each one then see which one is easier to read.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the project, I have learnt about many different types of technology and software, some I had come across before and some I had never previously used. During the research stage of the project, I watched many different pop promos on the video website YouTube to gain and idea of the codes and conventions of music videos for different genres of music. I also viewed some music videos that students had made for their A2 Media Studies coursework on YouTube which was a good way to gain inspiration and see how they had responded to the brief we were given. I used the photo sharing website Flickr, as well as Google Images to research print adverts that different artist had used to promote themselves (CD Covers, magazine adverts, posters, flyers etc). I also scanned some images into my computer using a Canon scanner, of print adverts that I’d found in magazines, then uploaded them to my blog.
In the planning stage of the project, I set up this blog to display my research, planning and evaluation, using Blogger which I have found to be an excellent blog making website as it is simple to use and yet my blog still looks professional. As I was cinematographer in the group, I used the online encyclopedia Wikipedia to refresh my memory on the different rules and guidelines of film-making, such at the Rule of Thirds and the 180 degree rule. We used the social networking website Facebook to send questionnaires to our artist and communicate with him about how we were progressing with making his promotional package.
During production, we filmed using a CANON HV30 DV Camcorder on a VELBON DV-7000 tripod - we did not need a microphone as we didn’t need to record sound. We also used a 100W light in the bedroom scenes. Jessica (our editor) then captured our footage off of the camcorder onto the computer and logged it, and then edited our music video using Adobe Premier Pro, which we found to be of a very high standard but also simple to use. Lastly, we compressed the film into a .WMV (Windows Media Video) file type to make it a smaller file size and thus more accessible on the web. Being the cinematographer of the group (last year I was in charge of the Mise-En-Scene) I found learning to use the camcorder a slight challenge as I had to learn how to control all the different effects, such as exposure, aperture and white balance, but overall it was fairly simple to use after some practice.
To make our CD Cover and magazine advert, we used Adobe Photoshop CS4. I have had experience of using this before (GCSE Art etc) so knew how to use the Layer tools to create an image with multiple images and text items etc, and found that the software allows you to create designs with a very professional look to them. Nicole took the original photographs using a digital SLR camera.
Monday 3 May 2010
Lawrence King Feedback
We sent Lawrence the a copy of the music video (albeit the one with technical errors) and a copy of the digipack and print ad design. We conducted the following interview over Facebook to get some feedback.
Hi Lawrence, We sent you a rough draft of the video, what do you think about it?
I think its very good! I know you said there were some issues with this version of the video but I got the general feel of it.
What in particular do you like about the video?
I enjoyed the fast motion [time lapse] scenes, I think its suits the pace of the track well. I'm also glad you decided to uphold my anonymity. Also the concept of crossed paths and a relationship forming. Most electronic artist I follow also do something different in their videos, not just a band playing in a pub or girls dancing in aclub like you find in most pop videos.
What would you change about the video?
Probably would have put a few more of those fast motion scenes in there, maybe at a nightclub? And I'd like to have seen the track at its complete length, but I know you had restrictions and all that.
Moving on to the album design and magazine advert, how do you think we did?
REALLY really good, the cover has a nature feel to it but kinda enhanced nature- which i like. In the inside cover and on the ad I like the feeling of speed or moving that you captured. Looks kinda urban aswell. The bloke standing across the road is a nice touch, like its ment to be me, but its not clear enough to really know.
Thanks for your time Lawrence!
Class Feedback Of Our Promotional Package
Having completed our music video and print ads, we screened them to our Media Studies class who gave us lots of valuable feedback and constructive criticism. This information was excellent for finding out what the strengths and weaknesses were of our production and will really help when we evaluate our work.
Initial Impressions: Positive Feedback
Initial Impressions: Positive Feedback
MUSIC VIDEO
Initial Impressions: Positive Feedback
- Video clearly focused on the main characters, easy to understand who it was we were ment to be watching.
- Time lapsed traffic was in time with the tempo of the music
- Liked the make up shots, giving the effect the camera was a mirror.
- Interesting narrative effect with the "rewind" through the day at the start.
- Not enough light in the bedroom scenes, too dark.
- Artist not included in the video.
- Too much time lapsed footage, got a bit boring.
- Could of used more shots to keep engaging the audiences interest.
- Liked the use of experimental use of cinematography, particularly the make up shots and the shots through the metal chair in the bar scene.
- Shots well framed and panning shots were smooth.
- Good variety of shot sizes.
- Bedroom shots could of been more detailed?
- Nice and colourful shots throughout.
- Bar environment looked sophisticated and classy.
- Good use of props - mobile phones etc.
- Characters dressed appropriately throughout.
- Lighting on Nicola in the bedroom scene could of been improved.
- Shots used worked well with the timing of the music.
- Looked professional, no amateur effects used etc.
- Could of included a few more shots in the bar scenes?
- Overall, worked well throughout.
- Could of included artist in the video, or perhaps shots of a DJ to make it more performance as well as narrative based.
- More reference needed to Lawrence King - too distanced.
- Effects used were good throughout.
- Some lighting issues, mostly in the bedroom scenes.
- Ambient music, not too stressful or too much action.
- Made everyday scenes look a bit different.
- Overall, was defiantly suitable to the genre.
- Representations in the video included - nature, movements, relationships, intellectual, perhaps quite middle class?
- No representation of Lawrence King in the video.
- Worked well at targeting our audience.
CD COVER AND MAGAZINE ADVERT
Initial Impressions: Positive Feedback
- Clever use of typography.
- Time & nature reflected well (which were strong elements in the music video aswell, helps to bring the 3 pieces together to create a promotional package).
- Suburbia and middle class represented (the house on the inside cover etc) - audience can relate.
- Suitable typefaces used.
- Photo used on inside cover very nice.
- Contrast between nature and urban environments apparent - worked well.
- Some of the writing on the magazine advert could of been in a different colour to make it a little clearer to read, but no major criticisms overall.
- Linked to music video, mysterious.
- Middle class suburbia.
- Piece's connected as well as contrasted.
- Inside image tinted slightly yellow, nice effect.
- Magazine advert image was abstract, looked very good.
- Good use of lighting, all the images well lit.
- Lawrence King dressed appropriately in the inside cover image - looked dark and mysterious.
- Clever use of "Night".
- Font used was sort of electronic/futuristic/like a typewriter font.
- All images nice and colourful
- Perhaps more of the writing could of been in white?
- Successfully created aesthetically pleasing print advert designs that worked effectively.
- Good technique
- Images used were of very high quality/high resolution.
- Demonstrated good photography skills (credit goes to Nicola for the images!) :)
- Lawrence King represented in the inside image of the CD Cover, shown as mysterious and anonymous.
- Targeted a young audience with an interest in ambient music well.
- Good overall promotional package, elements followed through (nature vs. urban, movement, time).
Saturday 1 May 2010
Production Meeting 8
The promotional package has been finishes and presented to the class. We gained valuable feedback (see previous entries) and we will all now individually begin to concentrate on our evaluation. Jess has made some last minute edits to the the music video based upon feedback to improve the video further. Unfortunately we have hit some technical errors when trying to compress the video from Final Cut Pro into a Quicktime .Mov file. Our lecturer is looking into these problems and we hope to have a final version of our video up on the blog asap.
Tuesday 20 April 2010
Final Print Designs
Nicola has completed the designs for our CD cover:
As well as the completed magazine advert...
I am really pleased with the final designs. Nicola has managed to convey the theme of movement and energy well by use of the long exposure feature on the digital SLR camera the original images were taken with. The typography is easy to read, the right size and overall the three pieces are aesthetically pleasing with a professional look to them (mainly because the images used were of such high quality and high resolution) and they really work well together to help create a promotional package (along with the music video) to help promote Lawrence King.
As well as the completed magazine advert...
I am really pleased with the final designs. Nicola has managed to convey the theme of movement and energy well by use of the long exposure feature on the digital SLR camera the original images were taken with. The typography is easy to read, the right size and overall the three pieces are aesthetically pleasing with a professional look to them (mainly because the images used were of such high quality and high resolution) and they really work well together to help create a promotional package (along with the music video) to help promote Lawrence King.
Saturday 3 April 2010
My Individual Print Designs
For my idea for our album cover, I wanted to go with the theme of the artist being unknown (so no photos of him etc), and also with the theme of having an abstract design, like artists of a similar genre of music to ours have done in the past such as Boards of Canada that I researched previously. Building on this idea, I had the thought of incorporating newspaper clippings of letters to spell out the name "Lawrence King" and maybe the album name, and also perhaps incorporating the themes of traffic and traffic lights that is present in our pop promo, with the time-lapsed cars stopping and starting at traffic lights as the tempo of the music changes.
One thing I was sure of when I started trying out designs for it was that I wanted to have simple, clutter free design, using very high quality images to give a professional and sophisticated look.
Front cover ideas:
The image below is my favorate cover design from the ones I created. The typeface and images I used make it immediatly obvious who's album it is. The photo I took of a red trafficlight (which is internationally recognisable as the colour which means stop), and the newspaper clippings that spell out the word stop, were very large high quality images at about 3000 x 1000 pixels. I then resized these down (whilst constraining the proportions so they remained the right shape) so that they were the right size for the CD cover. This image has multiple layers for each image and text, so it was easy for me to edit a particular object without effecting the whole image. I then used the "stroke" effect (in the Blending Options menu) to give a black outline 2 pixels wide around the image to make it look neat and professional.
Back cover:
If we were to go with my CD Cover design for our final piece and made a magazine cover for it, I would want to have a very similar design to the CD cover, but instead in an A5 size, with a longer quote at the bottom from a music magazine or similar giving praise to Lawrence King or the album, as well as a release date for the album.
One thing I was sure of when I started trying out designs for it was that I wanted to have simple, clutter free design, using very high quality images to give a professional and sophisticated look.
Front cover ideas:
The image below is my favorate cover design from the ones I created. The typeface and images I used make it immediatly obvious who's album it is. The photo I took of a red trafficlight (which is internationally recognisable as the colour which means stop), and the newspaper clippings that spell out the word stop, were very large high quality images at about 3000 x 1000 pixels. I then resized these down (whilst constraining the proportions so they remained the right shape) so that they were the right size for the CD cover. This image has multiple layers for each image and text, so it was easy for me to edit a particular object without effecting the whole image. I then used the "stroke" effect (in the Blending Options menu) to give a black outline 2 pixels wide around the image to make it look neat and professional.
Back cover:
If we were to go with my CD Cover design for our final piece and made a magazine cover for it, I would want to have a very similar design to the CD cover, but instead in an A5 size, with a longer quote at the bottom from a music magazine or similar giving praise to Lawrence King or the album, as well as a release date for the album.
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