FINAL DIGIPAK

FINAL MUSIC VIDEO

FINAL POSTER

Feedback on Director's Commentary

Feeling Good

Abbi Douetail, Will Edgely, Isabel Boddy and Lizzie Ward Thomas


Excellent and considerate understanding of the technologies used in production of the video, for example in terms of digital picture quality and the use of FCP. There are evident links between creative decision making and use of technology on both productions of the video using professional digital cameras and in the post production editing process – in discussion of match of action, lip syncing and graphic matching. This is sustained and thorough and accurate in discussion of the branded themes of the MV of S&M. The commentary shows a discrete awareness of the use of new media technology and uses discriminating examples really well, particularly to selection and construction of narrative, using masks and editing techniques, such as cross cutting Excellent command of terminology and well presented – understands and discusses convergence really well. There is sustained justified decision making links between the technologies used the product and audience reception.
This is a well considered documentary, well done.

Task 4: Media technology in Poster and Digipak

Photoshop is a creatie software used for editing or image manipulation. We used it in order to make a creative Digipak and Poster. Two key techniques which we used are layering and saturation.

POSTER
Firstly, we chose a photo from the many professional photo's we had taken of our band on our photoshoot day. With this, we then firstly changed the colours to black and white using the colour effect tool on Photoshop.

We then used Google as a research tool in order to save an image of a 'best seller' sticker for the poster. We used layering in order to get it onto the poster on photoshop and then the crop and shrink tool to scale it to our poster, holding ctrl whilst we did this so that it would scale correctly.

We got the contrast up on Photoshop and increased this so there was more contrast. The high contrast along with the black and white effect gave our band the dark feel which we hoped to portray in our poster, demonstrating our star image more than ever. We then used the 'T' tool in order to add text for the information on our poster which included release dates, tour dates and the name of our band 'The Vibe'.

DIGIPAK
In terms of our digipak, we decided on what we wanted to go in each panel. We made our frontcover quite early on using Photoshop again, and then used photos from our photoshoot day for the inside panels, and edited again the back cover on Photoshop. We used this software in order to put together all of our Digipak and thus Photoshop helped us create a professional and effective CD Digipak for our band. The front cover was made using layering from 3 different pictures. We saved all three pictures from google, the first one being a picture of a pentigram, the second Leonardo Divinci and the third was a landscape. The picture of the landscape gave us the idea for Spanning Three Borders as our album name. We used the 'T' text tool again to add this album title, again selecting whatever font and size we wanted. The back cover was a picture which we also grabbed from Google, a picture of a girls legs hanging.

However, we edited the contrast and the brightness once we had inserted this picture into Photoshop. Therefore, Google helped us excessively as a research tool, however we made it our own and could manipulate and edit everything exactly how we wanted it thanks to Photoshop. We grabbed a bar code of google and shrunk this to the size we needed, keeping everything in proposion. For the left inside panel we used singular pictures of each band member which we had taken on the photoshoot day.

We cropped each picture and transformed them so that we could layer them all together so it looked like one picture with them all standing in different places. We then whitened the background to make this effect even greater. For the right hand side, we again used a picture from our photoshoot day and edited the contrast and brightness and tranformed the picture so it fit the size of the panel. Each picture from our photoshoot day was individually edited in Photoshop before hand, again showing the importance of this software in the making of our ancillary tasks.

Task 4: Media Technology in Pre-Production

Before we filmed and edited our music video, we drew out a storyboard of what we wanted our shots to look like. We then stuck these storyboards up on the wall so we could film each 'shot' that was drawn out. We used a Sony NX 5 to shoot them. We then edited all these shots together using Final Cut and synced the shots up to our song. Therefore, we basically had a rough cut of our actual music videos. This proves how media technologies allowed us to get a feel for what our music video would look like and therefore change anything which we didn't thnik fit the song. This was crucial as our storyboard animation allowed us to realise that we had some shots at the end that were too slow and that we did not have enough intense action in our video. We then had time to think about this and establish the changes before the shooting day. Thus, this media technology was a significant part in our pre-production and our music video may not have turned out as well without our storyboard animatic.

Here is a screen recording of us editing our storyboard animatic together:

This website itself (eBlogger) has been a vital piece of online technology which has helped us significantly in our coursework and final product of our music video. It has allowed us to blog all the planning and research as well as any ideas that come to mind therefore acting as a kind of scrapbook or notepad full of everything to make sure we do not forget any ideas. It also puts everything in one place and makes it a bit more organised, for example, with the months and years tabs down the right hand side.

Here is a hyperlink to a web page which talks about the advantages in Blogging, these are all also beneficial to us in relation to our coursework:
Benefits of blogging

New advances in technology have also brought advances in mobile phones, including the very useful iPhone. We used iPhones to take pictures of anything we drew out, for example drawings of our set design or location. We could therefore upload this straight to blogger or email it to wherever it needed to go straight from the iPhone. In addition, we used iPhone's to get images of our band and cast members, which we then uploaded straight to blogger and used to email to teachers to get these students out of the lessons when we needed to shoot them. This also allowed us to also look at the images quickly and work out which cast member would suit what outfit or shot and get more of a feel for the cast. This shows how modern media technology has made our planning for our music video extremely simple and quick, for example we could just take a snapshot of whatever we needed on our iPhones without having to find a professional camera or photographer.

It seems like an obvious one, but the internet of course was a vital form of media technology and our coursework could not have been successful without it. We used it mainly as a research tool but we also used it to access websites such as eBlogger, YouTube and google. Google was of course important in the research of bands, album covers and anything else we had a querie of. However, YouTube was specifically important for us so we could look up Music Video's to get some inspiration. Although this is not pre-production YouTube was also significant as our video would not be on the internet right now had it not been for YouTube, and this would have also affected the feedback we received.

Although most photo's and similar could be taken on iPhone's, we did organise a photoshoot with a photography student to take pictures of our band. This is because we needed photos for our digipak and poster and therefore wanted them to be professionally taken on a professional camera. This day went really well and led to a very satisfying digipak and poster, and this could not have been achieved had it not been for the photography studio, the professional camera, and Photoshop, the editing and image manipulation software that we used in order to layer and adjust the saturation. These are all media technologies and so highlight further how vital these were in our coursework.

Task 3: Evaluation

As well as getting in a few people to watch our video and answer our questionnaire questions - this helped us mostly distinguish any cultural or gender differences when decoding our music video - we also got together a focus group who we filmed watching our music video (to see their reactions) and we also filmed them discussing important feedback about our video. This included, what they decoded from it (and once told about the original concept whether they agreed we portrayed this in the best way possible), what they liked and what they didnt like, what they would have changed and also their opinions on our digipak and poster and whether all three elements went well together.

Generally, we got good feedback from our focus group. They all expressed that they liked the video and would easily watch it again as well as show it to their friends.

However, we also got some productive feedback that helped us distinguish what could have been done better. For example, when asked about the concept, our focus group were not entirely sure about it. They proposed a general idea about domestic violence, but then discussed about how this could not be the concept as they were performing acts on each other. One girl had clearly grasped the concept and realised that the characters in the video were clearly enjoying what was going on. Therefore, we did get a preferred reading from a few people, though mainly negotional readings were expressed. We did not seem to get any oppositional readings though which is positive as we got across our message. One we told them what we had encoded in the video they said that it all made sense. Our focus group were all aged 16 to 17 and seemed quite comfortable with the contraversial concept, explaining that they did not think it was too graphic in any way. Although what was interesting is that older generation adults expressed how they would not want to watch it again due to feeling uncomfortable and certain that they would not want their kids watching it.

In terms of the digipak and poster, our focus group were mainly pleased and said that it was obvious that it all linked together, apart from they would possible make the poster more edgy so it was more on par with the music video. In evaluation of this task, the only focus group members available at this time were females and so it would have possibly been more interesting as well as useful to have some male members of the audience to see if there were any differences in readings. Nevertheless, we had males participate in the questionnaire and so we could see gender differences from that. Furthermore, we all felt this was a very useful means of gaining audience feedback.

In terms of Hall's theory, our preferred reading would be for our audience to understand the concept that both of the characters are enjoying harming each other and that this kind of behaviour is becoming more common nowadays and that these are issues which are often ignored and we therefore want people to be aware of it. The negotiated reading would have been what we received from most of our focus group, a general idea about violence inside peoples homes and being more aware of these kinds of issues but not completely grasping the enjoyment in it. The oppositional reading, which we slightly came across with more older viewers, would be an audience member who could not see the point in the graphicness of it and finding it too controversial in a way that they would not want to watch it again. I think these readings all lead to positive consequences as even the oppositional reading would probably lead to people talking about it and the shock would spark up word-of-mouth. 

Task 3: Focus Group

Questionairre 2 (Task 3)

We took some pictures of our group whilst they were watching the video and filling in the questionnaire, and we also took some pictures of answers whch interested us:

This answer interested us because the girl who filled it in claims that the band represent her as they 'are similar to people we know'. She also claims the band are very relatable with their clothes and hair.

This answer interested us firstly because the girl takls about the things she liked about the video being the hanging scene and the camera passing through the walls. This corresponds with other peoples answer to their questionnaires and especially to our focus group discussion.

Here is the students we asked to fill in the questionnaire. We chose them from the year below because they had never seen the music video before unlike many people in our year. We had 2 boys and 3 girls so it was balanced and we could therefore see if there were any gender differences in their answers.

This answer interested us as this boy believed the band stood for 'taking risks in society' and that the message was to 'control your life and make your own decisions'. The fact that he saw the taking risks in society means that he decoded our video with the message we wanted to potray, showing that we got our message through well. The message he saw about controlling your life and making your own decisions, although we never thought to illustrate this, is good because it shows that he has got a positive message out of the video unlike some people who may find it disturbing.

This answer is also interesting as it corresponds with the previous answer claiming that they thought the band image was 'taking risks for fun'. This means it was not just the one person who thought so, showing that our message was put across very well.

Questionnaire (Task 3)

Questionnaire Questions

• Are you male/female?           
  
• How old are you?
  
• What’s your favourite music genre?
  
• What did you think was the concept of our video?
  
• Did you find it disturbing?
  
• Would you want to watch it again? If so where and when?
  
• Would you send it to your friends?
  
• What did you think the band image was?
  
• Is there anything you would change?
  
• Do you like the video? If so what did you like about it?
  
• What did you not like about it?
  
• Do you think the poster and video linked together?
  
• Would you buy the album?
  
• Did you like the digipak design?
  
• What would you get out of watching the video?
  
• Do you feel you relate to the band? If so how and why?
  
• Do they represent you in anyway?
  
• What do this band stand for?
  
• What attitudes to they represent?
  
• Is there a message? If so, what?
  
• What do you think could be improved in any of the products?
  
• Do you think they all seem like they are from the same band? Or there some differences in the image?

Feedback on evaluation Task Three

You have collated clear audience feedback.   I know that Abi is yet to post the video - this is in progress.
 I do feel that you need to analyse the data of your audience feedback - to pull out significant points which compliment and criticise your music publicity campaign, not just your music video.

But you do need to address the set evaluation task.
Thsi includes applying Hall's Reception Theory and interpreting preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings.
You will need to then apply this to your audience feedback and subsequently comment on what went well with the campiagn and even better if.  Have your target audience read teh MV in the way you desired or was it too controversial?

Task 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We received feedback via facebook and YouTube for our Music Video.

Here is a print screen of the comments and likes when our Music Video was uploaded to FaceBook:

Here is a print screen of the YouTube comments we received for our music video:

Looking at our feedback, it seems our audience found that our video was well edited and had a good general effect. Most people seemed shocked at our concept as it is not something you commonly see but this was in a positive way as many people were intrigued and seemed as though they would watch it again. Our video was also reposted on FaceBook by somebody else, which shows that people would easily show it to their friends. Our audience seemed pleased by our star image and thought the cast we picked went well with the concept as well as this track. Ultimately, I am very pleased with our audience feedback. This feedback is especially helpful as it comes from our target audience of 16 to 25's, as these are the most frequent internet users and as well as that the most frequent YouTube and FaceBook users. 

Feedback

This is a proficient Prezi of the evaluation task. I feel it is creative and covers many of the points it needs to. However I also feel that there are ways in which this could be developed in order to ensure that it meets level four criteria. to improve the visual style perhaps use more images/ links. Where you have used links, for example on regulation of the music video and ofcom advice, you need to point the reader at more precise and relevant points rather than a whole report. When using theory of Dyer, what arguments does he make in application to your coursework?
Likewise when discuss in the marketing mix do not simply cite Kotler's four P's apply this to your campaign. Finally, the idea that you have a boy band' is something that I associate with bands, like One Dimension, you have a much darker image than these typical boy bands and as a result you have tried to use controversy not rebellion to promote the image - I think you need to be clearer about this and who the target audience is (you ae quite general about this).
Nonetheless an excellent effort.

Task 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation Task 2 on Prezi

Task 1: In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Final Draft's of Digipak

FIRST DRAFT:



This is the first draft of our digipak. We wanted to show the main focus of the lead singer and we did this by making him the central point of the photo with each picture of the band. We also gave him his own panel in the digipak. The front cover has stayed the same as always with 'Spanning Three Borders', and the back cover has resemblence to the music video of the single, with the girl hanging. This is so that people will recognise the album from the video or visa versa. The inside panel's are photos from our photoshoot day, with one artistic one of our lead singer and the other one just simple head shots of the whole band. We did this so that people can get a good look at the band members to be able to notice them in future.

FINAL DRAFT:



We decided to get rid of the black lines in the picture of all the band members to make it look more professional. In addition, we edited the picture of patch so that he stands out a little more as the previous picture was quite bland. We also added some text next to the picture of the lead singer which says a bit about himself so that our audience can really get to know our band.

Feedback

The post is a diary entry for what happened on the day, rather than a reflective account of the production day.  There is also evident in the account how you overcame the problems posed, but I would have liked to have seen more detail on key shots scenes, in particularly with the 'hanging scene'.  More reflection is needed on the shots of the band's performance, contrasted with the shoot of the performance.

Photos from our Shoot Day

Due to the fact that our photographer did not turn up, we all took some pictures on our phones to upload to our blogs.

Here is our guitarist and pianist in our set whilst we were getting a two-shot of them.

Here is a picture of me operating the camera and getting a close up of the base guitar. I had to keep moving the camera to make sure he did not go out of shot.

This is the monitor which was connected to the camera which enabled us and other people to see how the shots were looking and point out anything which needed to change.

This is the machine used to operate the lighting changes. We had 4 different lighting changes during our track.

This is another photo of me getting a shot of our base guitarist.

Here is the camera we were using throughout our shoot. We had another one the same close by which we used when for example we needed to keep the first camera in a certain position on the dolly, In that case, we just swapped the memory cards.

Evaluation of Shoot Day.

So we have finished our shoot day and it went a lot better than I expected. The morning of the day was quite stressful as we found out that our two narrative characters were having to do an Art Coursework day, and although our girl thought she could get out of it the boy was not so sure. Thus, we thought we may have lost our whole narrative and were having to think about last minute decisions as we had not found out until the day. On top of this, our guitarist had forgotten to tell his teachers that he was not going to be in lesson due to a Music Video shoot, despite the fact he had told us he was allowed. We therefore spoke to his teachers and most of them were okay but it seemed like he was not going to be let out of one of his lessons which started at 11:50. We tried our hardest to get him out of it but it was not going to happen so we decided we just had work very hard on the performance shots and get them all done before this time. In addition, we still had the stress to finish building our set as the group that were in the studio on Friday did not finish until very late and so we by the time we got in there we had 20 minutes to get going. We made a mutual decision to not put up our wallpaper and just make changes to the wallpaper that the previous group had had. We then just about got time to throw tea bags at the wallpaper and open up some tea bags and rub them on the wall. We also made a few rips in the wallpaper and had some mould spray which we sprayed. This made the set look more like a skanky hotel room which is what we wanted. However, this is just about all we got done on Friday afternoon and so we had to finish it all Monday morning.

In the end, we managed to get all of the performance shots done before 11:50 which is when we were losing our guitarist. However we still needed to get a tracking shot of the whole band so we asked everybody to meet back in the studio for 1 to get this done, after a lunch break from 12:30. Our two performance characters were both in there by 1:30 and had the rest of the day to film as they had been let out by their art teachers after finishing their coursework. We did the tracking shots of them first as we had the dolly already set up from the narrative. Will Edgley and Abby Douetil and me all had a go on the dolly getting the shots we needed, whilst Lizzy Ward Thomas was on playback making sure we had the right part of the song for that tracking shot.

Here is a picture of Will Edgley pushing Luke whilst we were setting up the dolly.

Apart from the tracking shots in which we all had a go, I was on the camera most of the day. I would get the camera set up, find a shot which I thought looked nice and then ask the rest of my group what they thought. The camera I was using was linked to the monitor, which is where Abbi Douetil was standing most of the time and she would therefore give me feedback and what would look better inside the shot until we got it right and ready to shoot. Will Edgley started off on playback but then changed to pushing the dolly and so Lizzy Ward Thomas took over on playback for the rest of the day. At the same time as being on camera, I also helped with the production and therefore was always making sure we had the right people in the studio for the right time. If I thought we were missing somebody or there was somebody there who we didn't need I would shout to one of my group who weren't busy to find that person or whatever it may be. Abbi Douetil did all of the make up for the band and narrative and helped Molly (our main girl) with her costume and putting on the harness which was needed for the hanging scene.

Unfortunatley, the photography student which we had asked to come and take pictures did not turn up on the day. We tried our best to find a substitute photographer but most people were busy or did not have their cameras in school. So, as a last minute alternative, we asked for a second camera on which we could film little bits of what we were doing to make a 'Making Of' video which we have already started on and will blog once its finished.