What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The audience feedback is mainly positive with a few things we could improve on. When we showed it to our classmates here are the main points everyone made. It must be kept in mind however that not all the people in our class conform to our original target audience and although their feedback is helpful it can not be said to be exactly accurate.

The main points we got were:

• Varied amount of camera angles - close ups are maintained which engages the audience.
• Edited to the beat
• Use of camera shots to the beat is experimental and well thought of
• A good use of effects which emphasizes the genre of the song and beat - the effect that is 'fuzzy' illustrates the vibrant atmosphere created which we be in a club making it generic to the genre.
• Make-up is effective and fits with the genre
• The artists clothing ranges from shot to shot and their colours seem to contrast with the background.
• Nice locations that conform to the genre of the piece
• The repetition of the split screen of the lips is nice and links the video together

I feel all this feedback is fairly accurate; we spent a lot of time concentrating on mise en scene ensuring we had the correct clothing, make-up, accessories and locations. Looking at my final video I think that the mise-en scene is one of my best achieved aspects of the video. The hair and make up we chose are all similar to videos of the same genre we watched and changes throughout the video making it un-repetitive. This is the same with the clothing which not only fits the genre but had a bigger impact as my feedback shows colours seem to contrast with the background'. The locations we choose had fairly plain backgrounds but allowed us to position our artist at different levels and in different positions which I feel created variation throughout my video. The edits we did use on the video where all effective however when evaluating my final product myself I feel that if had more time and experience in using final cut pro some of the edits would not be so random.

This is an example of one the the edits which I felt was random. The reason being that it was a shot that had been edited placed in the middle of a sequence of un-edited shots which made it look fairly random.

Like my own opinion the class liked the grid we did of the lips which I feel was one of the main original specific ideas that we kept from the beginning to the end and was effective. One thing that deemed to be very worth wile was the amount of footage we got and the variations of angels we made sure we took the time to get. This again has ensured our video is not too repetitive even though we actually only filmed in about five locations. If we had more time I would of liked to get a couple more shots as I think by the end it could be argued that the video edges on being repetitive. 

The one main point that we were told could have been improved was:

• The editing to the beat of the music

Because our song is quite fast pace it was at times hard to edit to the beat. It is conventional of our genre to increase the speed of editing as the song begins to speed up or slow down as the beat begins to drop. I agree with the feedback and feel that we should have taken more time in matching the editing too the speed of the beat of the song. However I feel this as well as the editing we choose use these are the only big two points that let us down. 

how did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used a vary of media technologies when completing my media work. These varied though out the process of this course from using vimeo, youtube and google in planning to cameras and tripods at production to quark express and photoshop in post production and blogger through out. In the videos below I have talked about some of the technologies I used.

In planning I also used websites such as Da font which is a website that provides different font types. To used this I simply looked through the various fonts until I found a font I felt was appropriate for my genre. I then typed in the words I wanted and took a screen shot of this importing it after into photoshop to put on my digipak.

In post production I also used google to search up various artists similar to my own. Once I had found their actual websites using the search engine I clicked on the various links throughout the website paying attention to how they were using image, colours and different fonts to not only promote themselves but to also create a link between their videos and digipaks.

Once I had collected my footage for the video I used Final cut pro to edit it. I selected the clips I wanted to import and imported them. Placing them on the time line I decided what order I wanted them on a dragged them at them sides to make the longer or shorter.

An aspect that we did not learn last year was syncing. To do this we had to drag a music track into the timeline and then make a mark on a certain work. Taking a shot where we had filmed this word being sang we then had to make a marker on the exact point where she said it and line the two up using a bar.

To cut to the beat which I had to learn to do because this was not required of us last year inserting markers to the beat we used the razor tool to clip where we wanted the clip to cut.

We used various editing tools on on our clips changing the times, colours, contrast and lighting. To find effects we had to press the effects tool bar and for changing the colour had to go to the video filters option which gave us lots to choose from.  

In post production I used Photoshop to edit my photos and create the images for my digipak and to create my advertisement. To do this i took photos using my DCLR camera and imported them into a 12 cm by 12 cm file so that it would be the right size when I imported it into Quark express.  After importing the photos I changed the lighting and shadows using the tools.

I used other tools to create boxes and fill them with colour which is what I then put my imported writing on. I used the word tool to create the writing for the inside of my digipak.

After I had created what I wanted to go on each section of my digipak on Photoshop I used Quark express to make it look like the real thing. To do this I had to create a picture box where I wanted to import my picture and then holding command E find the file I wished to import and when I found it press open.

The only other thing I used this programme for was to create a spine where I simply did exactly what I have shown above but rotated it after.

Evaluation 2; effectiveness in combination of your main product and ancillary texts

Links between my music video, digipak and advertisement

colours: Greens and pinks ran throughout the video as well an in my ancillary products

Similar clothing (black strappy top)

Red lips

Similar sitting positions

 Same hair style

EVALUATION; Question 1 (unfinished)

Although Dubstep is becoming more commercial videos in the same genre were very hard to find so finding a whole video that we could get an idea for the conventions of Dubstep music videos was quite hard. What we did find were videos of big raves and parties which we would not have been able to do in our video effectively. Therefore I looked at various different videos for ideas we could put together to make our final video.

This is a music video I looked at before making my video. It is also from another underground London scene as it is garage. The editing is like ours in the fact that it is to the beat and fairly fast paste. The mise en scene of this video is also similar being filmed in rural London with people who are all dressed fairly retro wit hightops and funky haircuts. We used this video as the inspiration behind the idea of changing some of the colour of the shots.

Another video I looked at was Example's music video for 'Kickstarts'. This is the video where we got the idea for our grid of lips which he uses with feet at the start. 

Again the costume is also similar in some way with high tops. I imagine these would be the people in our video by day when they have not been partying. This video also gave us our idea for our bubblegum shop as it was a fun and playful which we wanted to represent in our artist. 

We also took the idea of him stamping out the shot which they have made work in editing. We have a shot like this in our video where our artist points to the ceiling and another sot falls onto her. 

When looking a digipaks and adverts to influence my own I looked at mainly new upcoming artists who are fully established yet. 

When I first found this album cover I looked at doing something similar with my artist however I wanted a close up on her face so still using lots of small photos of her face I put them together to make a big face. Example uses very big bold writing which I liked as I feel it sticks out and is easily recognisable as his album. I also made my artists name very big as I feel it is important for the album to stick out when being sold on a shelf.

 

 The colours on examples album cover all complement each other and don't over complicate it. Some of his outfits can be found on him in his video which brings a link across from the video I tried to do the same making Sarahs lips red on the cover and her hair similar to some of the shots in the video.

I also looked at Florence and the machines digipak and advertisement together to look at how I could link my video, didgipak and advertisement effectively. 

Looking at this  we can see that she used the image from her album cover on her advert making a clear link, showing the product being sold. The artist name in the same font as on the album cover which is now iconic to Florence is at the very top of the advert and is in white which stands out on the black background and makes it easily recognisable. Taking all these ideas I used them on my advertisement making sure there was a clear link between my video, digipak and advertisement. To do this I ensured I took the photos with similar clothing and ensuring she had red lips. I used the same fonts, colours and images between the album and advertisement.

Another convention of our genre's music video is fast paste editing. We did try to do this however I do not think it was as fast as it should be at some points in the video such as the build up to the drop. If we had more time we would have been able to perfect this but unfortunately due to the amount of time we spent experimenting with different types of edit on each shot we ran out of time.

Final digipak & poster

Mock up of advertisement

Mock up of digipak

Photos I plan to use in my digipak and adertisement

I plan to use these photos to make a collage of my aritist's face. This will feature on the front cover.

                          

I have choosen to do this to do something a bit less conventional then the normal photo or the artist or use of graphics. I am hoping that it will make the cover eye catchy and will draw people in to look at the different c-d cover. I have taken more photos but these are the main examples of the photos I will use as the are in focus but soft.

These three photos will go in the inside of my digipak. I have edited the first two on photoshop to give them a edgier, more professional look. They show my artist in a plain, normal manner which I purposefully tried to capture as it will allow the audience to identify with her building a relationship between the two.

Feedback for music video - Louder

It is clear from the feedback that our music video fitted in very well with the genre of the song and matched the niche urban audience. From the feedback that was gathered the improvements that could be made are very minor and were more about the performance than the editing and filming of the video.

Do's and Dont's

After being taken through the Photoshop and digipak tutorial there are a number of do's and dont's that I have found i have to follow:

Do's

• Use a clear font
• Use photos that are clearly focused (they will be easier to resize when it comes to making them the appropiate size for the digipak)
• Use a font that follows conventions and the general style of your artist
• Use appropiate sizes for images and fonts
• Use barcodes, artist naes, copyright dates, artist websites etc
• Follow the 3 colour rule and use colours that will show up on your images
• Use a layout that follows the rule of thirds for compisiotions, this applies to when taking photos
• Think carefully when placing text, font and language by putting something somewhere what are you interpreting?

Dont's

• DO NOT STRECH IMAGES
• Forget to design a spine for the album
• Use layer styles
• Place text across the artists face
• Use a font because 'you like it' - this is not  good enough reason
• Feel you need a differnt photo on every panal
• Use any unnesscery effects they MUST suit the genre

short list of fonts, colours, layout and design ideas

Colours:


My plan is to only use about four colours as I dont want to make my album cover too crazy. These will be black, white, yellow and pink as they will stand out but also sit together nicely.

Fonts:


using graffiti on my digipak is an option but I feel that this has been done before and I am not sure if i want to follow the conventional - graffiti to connotate underground music scene.


here are some fonts I have looked at using;

I like all of these fonts and feel they would compliment the digipak and make it individual. I will not use these big fonts for all the writing I will use smaller simpilar fonts for the less important information so not to overcrowd my digipak.

Layout:

On the front cover of my digipak I plan to have a photo of our artists face with red lips, fake colourful eyelashes and big hoop earings which are all connections with the video. However it isn't a normal photo taking inspiration from David Hockney I have decided to make the face out of a collage of photos much like this one:

On the back cover I would like a photo of the aritist standing up which i will write the names of her song s alongside. The backcover will also have all the conventional things such as a barcode, production and label information and a website.

The left inside panel will be a page for thankyous this will be fairly plain mainly focusing on the writing. On the right hand side where the C-D will sit it will also be plain. The C-D will have the aritists name on it and will be a different colour from the background of its casing to make it standout.