Tuesday 15 December 2009
Evaluation - Jack
Our ancillary products didn't come out as well as we had hoped for, but at the same time I think they do convey the same sort of character as our video. Our magazine advert has a production shot of all the band members and also all the main objects used in the video. This was made by Ben in Photoshop and I think the shot itself works quite well, although the text on it may be too dark for our sort of video. In my opinion I think that bright colours would have worked better. Our DVD cover is unfinished but I think it would have looked good if we had finished. The plan was to make a small photo collage on the back of all the funny shots in our video, and the front would have just had something bright and colourful on it. I think this would have complimented our video very well.
Audience feedback was key for us in the making of our video. Our rough cut was left mostly unfinished, but the feedback we got from the parts we had done all said that the shots were too long and it needed to be faster paced. Thanks to the feedback we managed to pull through and make a good music video, by adding in more shots at random times so that the video had a much faster pace to it. In terms of how difficult it was to synch the shots, we were quite lucky in the fact that a lot of the shots seemed to synch themselves without much effort, which is how we managed to get such a great looking video made in such a short amount of time.
We used a lot of technology in planning and creating our music video. We used this blog to record all the planning we did, and we also used Final Cut express to get all the clips of our video together and create the video. I think creating our music video would have been a lot harder without the use of the computers. We also used Photoshop as mentioned previously, to create our ancillary products. We filmed all our footage on cameras, with which it was easy to transfer the footage onto the computer, and import it into Final Cut. This helped ease the creation of the video.
In conclusion I think that a combination of good media technologies and audience feedback helped shape our video, and some quick thinking and editing managed to create a video I am proud of.
Evaluation
In true pop punk style we tried to incorporate as much destruction and chaos the environment we settled on filming in gave us. The good thing about working inside this genre is that a lot of the props used and footage was opportunistic and didn’t need to be as well planned. For instance running about and having fun didn’t need to be planned down to the last detail, as there were many improvising opportunities. This is true of youth culture. Young people don’t worry and run around un-afraid of a consequence, which suggests what audience the video is aimed at in terms of audience. If we had made the video too destructive we would scare away the audience, which in my opinion is mainly teenage girls and younger teens in general.
Our audience feedback from our rough cut gave us a lot to think about and improve on in preparation for our final piece. Without the feedback we received, the product wouldn’t be half as good as it is now. Our main problems after our rough cut were that the shots were too long; seeing as the song was fast paced we needed to cut the duration of the shots down. Another problem was the lack of good angles types and shot types as they all seemed to be pretty static. We took all this on board and re-shot a lot of footage.
When the final cut was uploaded we got more compliments than criticisms, the main one being that it had improved on the rough cut, which we can all agree on. Another criticism was that the video had no narrative whatsoever. We agree with this and we said from the beginning we didn’t intend to have a narrative, as the song type did not demand it.
The Internet played a crucial part in helping us make our video. Updates during the video creating helped us keep a check on where we were with deadlines and progress. Also it helped us find images for our digipack and compilation board in the planning stages of our products.
Final cut made our video, including cutting clips together and syncing the video with the music track and ultimately putting everything together in our production stages. YouTube helped us out also through the Internet, it helped us to find our inspirations from videos which have already been created for instance “Get smashed, gate crash” by Hadouken and “First date”, Blink 182. The partying and messing around influenced the themes of our music video, which were mayhem and destruction.
Written Commentary
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I think our music video both uses and develops both ‘scene’ and ‘punk’ genre of music. It uses both genres, e.g. the bright colours and alternative clothing style of ‘scene’ and the destructiveness and mayhem and performance elements of ‘punk’. It also challenges these two genres of music by using them both in the video, this can be seen in certain shots such as when the balloons, which are bright and colourful, are kicked around and jumped on, or when the chair is broken apart by me in a bright green hoodie with fluorescent pink and yellow trainers, which is a well constructed fusion of ‘punk’ and ‘scene’. There are very few, if any, real media products that try this sort of combination as it is hard to pull off as I now know. I feel that our ancillary products do not help this fusion of ‘scene’ and ‘punk’ as they fail to combine the bright colours with the mayhem and anarchy that the ‘punk’ genre is primarily about.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I believe the combination of our main product and ancillary texts works well yet still leaves a lot to be desired. I think that the magazine advert should have been more colourful with the texts and background and should have shown more of the ‘punk’ side of the band. It also lacks a leaf with the price and a puff to say where it can be bought, it does however carry a release date but I just don’t think it’s enough. It does show the band and really sells the artists as it has some good shots of the band each doing there own ‘thing’. The DVD digipak is a really big let down for me as there just isn’t enough information and pictures on the cover. In my eyes it needed a track list, more special features, e.g. outtakes from the video, free band poster, etc. On the whole I do think that our ancillary products help to sell the band and would create interest for fans of the band and convince them to buy our product.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
We learnt a lot from our audience feedback. After they saw our rough cut video the general conclusion was, more footage needed to finish the video, faster shots and more construction with the footage itself, we took this into account and went out and filmed as much footage as we could to rectify this problem, then went on to finish our piece and make sure it lived up to expectations. After the final cut was viewed our audience feedback had changed dramatically. They said how they thought we had ‘definitely improved our rough cut’ and managed to ‘bring out the full potential’ of our video. They suggested using shots from our video on our magazine advert and our digipak. Which we did, however it is more noticeable on our digipak than our magazine advert. After showing these product to our audience the general feedback was that it was well put together, helped to sell the artist etc. We were happy with the feedback as there were almost no negative comments.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used many new technologies with our piece in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages. During the research we used the internet, we used websites such as ‘YouTube’ and ‘Google’, to help us decide how we were going to get our music video to feel, we had influences such has Hadouken’s ‘Get Smashed Gate Crash’ and Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ ‘Can’t Stop’. In the planning stages we used Blogger.com a lot as it helped us share ideas when we couldn’t contact each other and it let us post our mood board and video research on so people could see what we were going for with our video. At the construction and evaluation stages of our piece we were mainly using handheld cameras, which have only been around for a few decades, and used the Apple Mac computer, and a program known as Final Cut Pro, where we could upload, edit and refine our music video and the Photoshop program were we could edit and create our ancillary tasks. These systems were essential as it really cuts down the amount of work needed to do to create a music video.
Wednesday 9 December 2009
video commentry
Wednesday 2 December 2009
bens thoughts
FRIDAY - DEADLINE DAY
Tuesday 24 November 2009
CLASS FEEDBACK
Tuesday 17 November 2009
Progress
we are so nearly finished!!!!!!
we are going to look past the fact we needed to film some filler yesterday, which we did not do, instead we are making the most of today and jack is scanning through footage with Ben while i am writing this.
The footage we filmed at the last minute has paid off because we think it looks beyond amazing. The balloons round the video off, they are the colour presence which was needed to make it even partially visually entertaining.
Wednesday 4 November 2009
Response to Feedback
Artist Representation
Kicked a cone on the floor
it's in the forest
Lots of performance
shots of guitar
Not enough
i like it though
Group 03
Your group seem to have stuck to your moodboard, shown by the pink Guitar, but you could try and get some footage of the college sight, spread around your locations to bring out the potential of the song. Some parts of the video don't completely feel right, almost random like you could have planned them further. In addition half the song is missing, so you don't get a real feel of what your aiming for.
Group 04
Good guitar miming, links well to music.
Jumping around and rebellious attitude link well to genre.
You could improve by making it a little more past paced.
Maybe film again in a different locations.
Feedback from group 05
it fits the genre characteristics by having a performance also various images of rebelion such as smocking fit the stereotype of the genre.
the video included a good range of shot types. with close ups of the lead singer and extram long shot of running through the woods.
however the video is not yet finished so we can not really give a full review.
Roughcut Music Video
This is all we have for our roughcut. Chris were supposed to add to it during their free periods today, but have failed to do so and the video is therefore lacking the last minute. Ben is also absent from todays lesson
Tuesday 3 November 2009
Rough Cut Feedback - TAW
well
we have around 45 minites of random footage ideal for making a video like this so we have a lot of options where to go with certain scenes.
all in all we will be finished by tomorrows lesson.
Tuesday 20 October 2009
Progress
Tuesday 6 October 2009
Contacting the band
Shooting Schedule
Camerawork // Storyboard
As the video progresses and the people get drunker and drunker i thought it might be a good idea to have different filters over the video to make it feel like you are in the head of the hand held camera person as though you are at the party with them and are experiencing what they are experiencing in their head.
also the storyboard is coming along nicely and timeline is being completed.
Wednesday 30 September 2009
Teacher Feedback on Blog
Your ideas are interesting and present an opportunity to create a video that is full of beautifully composed and lit shots. It is very important to plan in detail what you intend to film to ensure that this happens.
Your blog needs the auteur presentations embedding, it needs props, costume, location details with visuals. It needs some address to Goodwin through an analysis of a music video and more evidence of influences.
It is also really important to have some evidence of the initial ideas for your magazine ad and your digipak.
Good work so far, keep going.
Pitch Feedback
Props
For the other scenes we would need stuff like alcohol bottles, tents, and other scenery.
hadouken get smashed gatecrash
Ideas
Performance in the woods
Filming around town, handheld camera
Colourful clothes/ instruments
Colourful filters
Other stuff
Wednesday 23 September 2009
Lyrics
Well everyday's just a little strange, cause it's this and that,
and "I can't explain," 'cause we're down and up.
We're still lurking after clubs shut the door,
no one's tired and we can go some more
because we're down and up.
Living's so detrimental to the lives that live for no one:
we're so electric till it's gone.
Living like trash never felt so good,
just remember it's only chemicals,
because we're down and up.
Stumble around like it's some kind of trick,
pulling one in when you're bottlesick,
because we're down and up, up and down and up.
Living's so detrimental to the lives that live for no one:
we're so electric till it's gone.
Hey, just look around this old town-
so much debauchery's going on;
these city streets aren't ordinary,
bathroom kids say "What's the story?" and they lie.
They seem to be about alcohol and drugs, and going to clubs. We will probably base our video around this