Music Video Evaluation Writing
1. In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Throughout our video we attempted to fit the lyrics to the visuals of the song. To start we downloaded the lyrics and then made points as to the possible ideas to fit with them. In our final video we used the concept of miming or lip synching to math the singer with the lyrics, also some of the stop-motion that was in the stop-motion notebook read ‘so much to tell you…to fill you in’, this directly imitated the lyrics creating a connection. In this particular parts the words have denotations of cute and girly, therefore these also create a connection with the visuals, the music and the overall genre and representation of the band. Other connections include the lyrics such as ‘I met you at a party’, fit in with the party scenes. This shows there is a ‘link between lyrics and visuals’ as quoted by Andrew Goodwin writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (Routledge 1992)
The above representations show the character as innocent, girly and sweet. Other ways this can be seen it through the girly, childish doodles and the scratchy effects on the video creating a vintage feel. Also the sepia tone makes the whole feel of the video calm and soft. This is unique and exploits the bands USP.
The genre of the band and this song in particular is very out there Indie pop. The video incorporates some typical conventions of this genre, such as the girl singing to a blank wall is popular for this genre. Although, the genre has been challenged by giving the video a slight narrative, almost turning it into a story or a diary of the girls day. Also visual Indie pop conventions are expressed through the miss-en-scene: vintage style dress, mirror (old style frame), plain room with hard and clear flooring.
There are some inter-textual reference to our video that represent comparisons to other videos, some of which are a completely different genres and some are also indie pop. This shows how we have enhanced our video the use of other typical genre conventions. Kate Nash is also an Indie pop singer and therefore some features of her video can be seen as similar to features of our video. For example Kate Nash ‘Foundations’ video (25/5/07) had a very vintage theme, her costume (old style dress) is similar to the look we attempted achieving. It incorporates also stop-motion in the form of socks dancing on the floor, showing a connection to our stop-motion tights scene. Overall the whole miss-en-scene is similar to what we tried achieving in our music video. Some videos from different genres that have inter-textual references to our video include ‘Sigar Ross - Hoppipola. This video has a very effective scratchy/ sepia effect, same as the one we have used. There are also some black edges like the ones we used in our lip synching scenes. In both the videos this is very effective and gives the impression it has been shot through an old camera lens, adding to the vintage feel in our particular video.
Throughout filming we used both a digital camera for the stop-motion scene and a camera for the main film. Mostly the camera is a mid-shot or close up angled at the singer rested on a tripod. Although during a party scene it is hand held, creating an edgey feel and showing a connection between music and visuals.
The lighting slightly alters throughout. The curtains opening and closing represent time of day. Also the sunset feel gives almost a romantic feel, showing again a connection to the lyrics, and fits in well with the genre. This also shows some variation. We darkened the stairs when shooting to show night and in the party scene, adding to an effective miss-en-scene. We got the perfect lighting when shooting against a blank wall so that it wasn’t too dark or light, also avoiding exposure of shadows. Other factors also created an effective video such as the miss-en-scene, the field was empty therefore representing loneliness and searching, connecting visuals to lyrics.
We can see through the shots used that we have used typical music video conventions through watching other videos. For example Will Young ‘You and I’ shows a singer singing at the camera against a blank background. Also Lady Gaga ‘Just Dance’ (17/6/08) shows a hand held party scene, just like our video. Katy Perry (who is in the same genre of our video) also uses a shot of the singer singing into a mirror, this is a clever shot that successfully captures emotion.
Our Digipack design is also similar to others, Christina Aguilera’s ‘Come on Over’ shows a face as a main focus on a plain background and Beyonce ‘B-day’ has a similar swirly pattern to the one we used around the edge. J-lo also has 3 bonus disks with a darkened/ softened face image on a neutral background. Showing it’s a popular way to display female artists. Our advert shows typical conventions e.g large band name, ‘Coming Soon’ and natural, neutral images that match the image of the band. It also shows the date of release and a review.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Both the digipack and the poster have the same colours, orange rustic, showing they connect. They both also use the same band name ‘Au Revoir Simone’ taken from the official website and therefore uses the style of the official band, this shows that we are trying to create an overall package that has the same feel that the band themselves have created. This works well as the bands image incorporates successfully with the genre style. This also shows a connection between the ancillary tasks. The colours are also good for the band because they are calm and natural. As well as the colours there are other visual links between the two tasks including images of the actress's face, whereby on both she is holding a calm, simple pose. As the actress is the girl we used in the music video and not the actual band, it shows a connection between visuals and ancillary texts. Both the digipack and the poster use swirly/flower images that where taken from the Au Revoir Simone official website. The link between the two therefore show strong connections, yet also denotes a sly connection between the official band and the way they are shown or perceived, very girly. We also used some music notes onto our poster which represents the passion for music. Overall with both the tasks we where trying to achieve a calm and peaceful diary like video of the girls day. Through the ancillary texts we have used very girly themes with neutral colours, this both shows they connect and represent the girl In the innocent yet elegant way we wanted her to be portrayed.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Feedback from our class on our roughcut was mostly negative as the roughcut was not great. Some of the things commonly commented on included: lack of scene variation, repetition of scenes and unprofessional laughing and smiling. There was also comments on it jumping from light to dark dramatically and a point that there was room for more performance. Although some of the positive feedback included speeding up of the street scenes as it successfully fitted with the music, although again this was repeated.
We took this all into context and changed some of the final to make it appeal better to the audience, including: complete change of actress and scenes, shot types and incorporation of stop motion, lighting and complete improvement of miss-en-scene. This was successful and our final-cut feedback was much more positive, 'The idea is good, I really like when Hannah walks towards the trees and the camera turns, also when the effect of when shes dancing by the trees', this was one of the comments received from Facebook. As we had connections with the band, the bands representative left this comment ' looks great!'. Through the production process we had many comments from our teacher advising us. When we first starting adding effects to the piece we received some constructive feedback from our teacher who discussed the old style effect. We where told that putting the effect across the whole of the piece would not look very creative, also when we did this we discovered many of the scenes (especially with the singer on a blank canvas) became almost orange. As a result and as advised we reduced the sepia tones on many of the scenes and reduced/ increased the scratchy effect where needed. Through experimentation we also discovered that adding the scratchy effect twice helped increased the creation of the old style image. Also through teacher feedback we where encouraged to change some of the dancing scenes as they where a bit slow and lacked variation. Through experimenting with this we found the ‘Stop-Motion’ effect on Final Cut and used this to double the girls image, or overlay the image making it appear there was more then one actress spinning.
Our class feedback for the final cut left the following comments:
Blog- very visual, lots of writing, good explanations, all fits together, good evidence of research.
Ancillary texts- Good ideas, good colours, tie in very well together, not too much information, possibility for more images.
Video- Good effects (especially old style), clubbing random, good lip synching, good idea and animation.
4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used many online sites to help with the production, planning and research and development. We used 'Youtube' as a way of researching into other music videos, this was an extremely useful source of ideas and helped us research other songs by the band. 'Blogger' was a way of documenting our development so far and research we had done on other videos, also as a way of uploading our video and other tasks.This we regularly updated to make it as successful as possible. The social networking sites 'Facebook' and 'Myspace' as a source of contacting the band, this was our only source of communication and we regularly checked to see if we had any feedback from the band and used it as a way of gaining permission and gaining feedback for our video. Final Cut was used in the production of the video. We used it to piece together our video and then add effects: such as Sepia, Old Scratchy Style (which had to be downloaded from the internet) and a stop motion effect that is available. This was used in both our roughcut and final cut. We also used it to speed up/ slow down parts of our movie such as the dancing scenes, therefore it is a very useful application to use as helped successfully create the video. Other applications we used was Photoshop, this was used to create both the digipack and the magazine article, both of which used images dragged from the music video and downloaded from the internet, in particular the Au Revoir Simone website. We also downloaded the font for the didgipak from ‘www.dafont.com’ which was ‘Hannahs messy handwriting’ and worked very well with the effect we where going for as it was swirly yet childish. We also used the internet to download the old style effect used across the majority of the video.
Music video evaluation (ciaran)
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products
We looked very closely at the lyrics of are song and choose to try and tell a story. We tried to involve them when filming and think in of ideas and certain line work well around the story idea, such as the line “it was late at night I meet you at a party”. For this line we put in a party scene where the main character is pushing thought the crowd. Andrew Goodwin talks about this in his book (‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’1992) he says that this is one of the six point to analysing a music video. The video is soft and simple very arty and individual. We felt that this is what the record company would like to portray the bands style of music. The camera, lighting and Mise-en scene backs up the idea that the band is not a mainstream band. There’s a mix of digital photo’s and video footage. The lighting was fresh and open and free a lot like the style of music. We wanted a vintage style for the video so we used a vintage dress and bedroom we also put an old style scratchy effect on the footage to emphasize this point. In the video we use a lot of istopmotion, which we got, from Kate Nash’s fountains. Where two socks fly across the room by themselves. We also looked at Kate Nash’s sweetest things video, which is where we got the idea for the girly cute handwritings and drawings. Will Young’s you and I video had him standing I front of a white wall singing to the camera which is were we got the idea of Hannah singing with the white wall I believe that are album cover is like beyonce’s B-Day. Where her face is the whole of the front cover. We used magazine advert conventions such as “coming soon” and reviews. It also showed her face on the magazine.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
For our magazine we got images like the music notes and swirls off Google images. We also found images from the music video and mixed them all together using Photoshop to blend them into one. We then used the font off the bands page, which we have used through out This Project. We Think It’s Very Successful And Elegant, And Goes Well With The Song. We downloaded a new font to use on our digipack, as nothing PhotoShop offered was what we wanted. We wanted a very cute, handwritten text, to make each digipack look like the artist has personally written it on. We feel this adds a much more personal feel to the digipack, which fits in with the theme of our video. The font we decided to use in the end was called 'Hannah's Messy Handwriting'.
Our real video, the magazine ad and the album cover were very effective together we got across the cute and girly ideas because in all forms of the task we had cute handwriting and we had little sweet cartoon picture in both the video and the album cover. As well as that we also had the singer in all of our tasks.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
We got a lot of class feedback on the video blog and ancillary. Such as for are video people said that they liked the stopmation and cartoons. For the blog people said that there were good amounts of posted and picture. we learn a lot from are feedback our teacher gave as feedback on both the blog and on our video. He said the video was basic with a lack of shot types. We also got feedback on our rough-cut from the class such as poor lighting, un professional acting, and poor locations we took this in to account and changed much of are video. Such as the locations and actress. We then got a much more positive feedback on our real video which seemed to be much better. People liked the locations and shot types. Our teacher like the effect that we used on are final video but said that the colour that we used (a dark sepia colour) and told us that maybe we should take this off from the outdoor footage. We took his advice and I feel that the video now looks better.. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used many different types of new technologies in our task. Such as websites where we used facebook to get feedback, we used myspace to contact the band, youtube for research, and we put are video on vimeo for the best quality. We also used final cut for the editing and Photoshop for the magazine and album cover, we used a digital camera and also a video camera for our final video.
We looked very closely at the lyrics of are song and choose to try and tell a story. We tried to involve them when filming and think in of ideas and certain line work well around the story idea, such as the line “it was late at night I meet you at a party”. For this line we put in a party scene where the main character is pushing thought the crowd. Andrew Goodwin talks about this in his book (‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’1992) he says that this is one of the six point to analysing a music video. The video is soft and simple very arty and individual. We felt that this is what the record company would like to portray the bands style of music. The camera, lighting and Mise-en scene backs up the idea that the band is not a mainstream band. There’s a mix of digital photo’s and video footage. The lighting was fresh and open and free a lot like the style of music. We wanted a vintage style for the video so we used a vintage dress and bedroom we also put an old style scratchy effect on the footage to emphasize this point. In the video we use a lot of istopmotion, which we got, from Kate Nash’s fountains. Where two socks fly across the room by themselves. We also looked at Kate Nash’s sweetest things video, which is where we got the idea for the girly cute handwritings and drawings. Will Young’s you and I video had him standing I front of a white wall singing to the camera which is were we got the idea of Hannah singing with the white wall I believe that are album cover is like beyonce’s B-Day. Where her face is the whole of the front cover. We used magazine advert conventions such as “coming soon” and reviews. It also showed her face on the magazine.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
For our magazine we got images like the music notes and swirls off Google images. We also found images from the music video and mixed them all together using Photoshop to blend them into one. We then used the font off the bands page, which we have used through out This Project. We Think It’s Very Successful And Elegant, And Goes Well With The Song. We downloaded a new font to use on our digipack, as nothing PhotoShop offered was what we wanted. We wanted a very cute, handwritten text, to make each digipack look like the artist has personally written it on. We feel this adds a much more personal feel to the digipack, which fits in with the theme of our video. The font we decided to use in the end was called 'Hannah's Messy Handwriting'.
Our real video, the magazine ad and the album cover were very effective together we got across the cute and girly ideas because in all forms of the task we had cute handwriting and we had little sweet cartoon picture in both the video and the album cover. As well as that we also had the singer in all of our tasks.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
We got a lot of class feedback on the video blog and ancillary. Such as for are video people said that they liked the stopmation and cartoons. For the blog people said that there were good amounts of posted and picture. we learn a lot from are feedback our teacher gave as feedback on both the blog and on our video. He said the video was basic with a lack of shot types. We also got feedback on our rough-cut from the class such as poor lighting, un professional acting, and poor locations we took this in to account and changed much of are video. Such as the locations and actress. We then got a much more positive feedback on our real video which seemed to be much better. People liked the locations and shot types. Our teacher like the effect that we used on are final video but said that the colour that we used (a dark sepia colour) and told us that maybe we should take this off from the outdoor footage. We took his advice and I feel that the video now looks better.. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used many different types of new technologies in our task. Such as websites where we used facebook to get feedback, we used myspace to contact the band, youtube for research, and we put are video on vimeo for the best quality. We also used final cut for the editing and Photoshop for the magazine and album cover, we used a digital camera and also a video camera for our final video.
Emma Grayland - Music Video Evaluation.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In our final piece, we have created links between the lyrics and the video. From the beginning, we knew we wanted a cute, girly theme to match the theme of the song, with lots of hand-drawn animation and doodles. Where we have used these, they are relevant to the song. Also, we have included scenes that are relevant to the lyrics at the time; for example, we included party scenes during the section of the song that was talking about going to a party.
We have used a variety of camera shots and angles, and also included a lot of still images taken on a digital camera, and compiled them together to produce a stop-motion effect. This is similar to a few music videos that we have seen and improved the development of our video as it made it more interesting to watch. Most of the lighting in our video is natural; at one point, we positioned our main character in front of a sunset and filmed from behind her. Our lighting is varied due to the nature of natural lighting, and we think this adds to the believability of our video as it is meant to be almost like a diary of the girl’s day. We also used some artificial lighting when filming indoors.
Mise-en-scene was a very important part of our video – for example, it was important that the viewer could see the notebook that the girl was holding. The notebook played an important part in the storyline and featured in some of our stop-motion.
Shots in our music video clearly demonstrate our research into other existing music videos. Kate Nash’s ‘Foundations’ video was where we gained a lot of our inspiration, as we were keen on a similar vintage style, and also liked the small amount of animation in it. It also used a couple of examples of stop-motion which we were very keen to use.
Although not an official music video, we also really liked an animation made for Kate Nash’s ‘The Nicest Thing’. It was very cute and girly and used the idea of hand-drawn animation and doodles, which we were very keen to use.
We also really liked an example of previous student’s work, which was made in 2008 by group R1-17 and based on the song, ‘I Don’t Want To See You’. This particular example used a similar vintage style, and also used the same idea of a ‘projector-effect’, with a frame creating a circle of video, sepia toning, scratches and an old film effect.
A convention of music videos is that the genre might be reflected in types of mise-en-scene, themes, performance, camerawork and editing styles. I think our music video links to this convention as our vintage theme throughout links with the lyrics of the song, and all aspects of the development process reflect the same theme and genre.
Our camerawork has a strong impact on the meaning behind the video – the movement, angles and shot distances are all used as a representation of the band, which is another convention of music videos.
Our digipack design matches the theme of our video, and uses the same template as many others that we researched – it folds over twice to allow room for two CD’s. We also used our research to design a realistic pack that would not look out of place on a supermarket shelf.
Our magazine advert uses conventions of real magazine adverts, as it uses many overlayed images to create depth and texture, but fits in to the theme of our song and band. It has a strong visual link to our digipack and many aspects are similar to create a brand image. It also uses text, which is a common trait of real magazine adverts.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Our main product and ancillary texts are strongly linked and this makes the combination of the two effective. They are both very visual and contain the same themes, which show consistency throughout. Both show attention to detail. One of the advantages of creating our own ancillary texts is that it gave us the opportunity to develop the brand image that is featured in our music video. Our ancillary texts have a continuous theme throughout and similar fonts are used on both. This consistency can be considered as a method of building a band identity and would boost the publicity for the band, making their work instantly recognisable. The digipack is relatively simplistic, whereas the magazine features a little more detail to prevent people getting bored of looking at them. This simplistic approach links to the theme of the music and could be seen as a trademark approach for the band.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We used no footage from our roughcut in our final piece, due to our roughcut being filmed quickly and not very well, and being put together in a short space of time. We had mixed feedback but it mainly said that we used good editing technique, and the theme was fitting to the song. However, we needed more shot and scene variety, and also more performance shots. There was too much variation in the lighting between shots, and our video cut a bit short due to lack of footage. We needed to gain more footage, use more locations, and tidy the video up all round.
As a result of this feedback, we changed pretty much everything about the video and started again from scratch, which was much more successful. One of the final adjustments we made was on the old film effect that we applied to our video, this led to the whole video having a sepia tone and a ‘scratchy’ effect over the top. At some points, we gained feedback that said the sepia toning was too strong, and was working against some of our natural lighting in our video. To sort this, we decided to continue using the old film effect to ensure consistency, but toned down the sepia so in certain places, it was barely visible. This was a lot more successful and we were pleased with the result.
Feedback that we gained from Facebook stated that “idea is good (animation type like) I really like when Hannah is walking towards the trees and the camera turns also when the effects of when she's dancing by the trees are great” and also that “loved the sepia effect in your video it gives it a kind of old film look and it goes really well and also the stop motion parts are really good”.
Feedback from our peers stated that our blog contained sufficient posts and evidence of research, and all fitted together visually with sufficient detail and photographs. However, we should have had a post on general ideas for the digipack, and could have had more colour and images as some of our posts were text only. The feedback mainly said that the animation and lip-synching were strong points, and people liked the effects on the video. However, we could have used a wider variety of effects and a wider variety of still images. Feedback for our digipack said that our track listings were good with a good overall design which linked strongly to the video, but we should have used more images of our main character. And finally, the feedback for our magazine advert said that the overall design was good and links strongly to the digipack, but some aspects were a little hard to read.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used Blogger to regularly update our online blog, with new information, examples and research. This was an effective method and an advantage of media technologies as it meant our blog could be easily edited, added to and was accessible to everyone. In the research stage, we used Youtube to research other videos, both official and also previous students’ work. We also used Myspace to research and contact the band. In the planning stages, we used Photoshop to compile mood boards and also to begin drafts for the poster/postcard etc. In the construction stages, we used Final Cut Express to put together both our roughcut and our final video, and Photoshop for our digipack and poster. We took images for these off both Facebook and Myspace. Our final piece was put on our blog using Vimeo. We also used a camcorder and Final Cut Express to create our evaluation video, in which we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of our video and explain the ideas behind some of the scenes. Modern media technologies definitely benefited our group and video as a whole, and has led to a professional-looking and effective video that we are all very pleased with.
In our final piece, we have created links between the lyrics and the video. From the beginning, we knew we wanted a cute, girly theme to match the theme of the song, with lots of hand-drawn animation and doodles. Where we have used these, they are relevant to the song. Also, we have included scenes that are relevant to the lyrics at the time; for example, we included party scenes during the section of the song that was talking about going to a party.
We have used a variety of camera shots and angles, and also included a lot of still images taken on a digital camera, and compiled them together to produce a stop-motion effect. This is similar to a few music videos that we have seen and improved the development of our video as it made it more interesting to watch. Most of the lighting in our video is natural; at one point, we positioned our main character in front of a sunset and filmed from behind her. Our lighting is varied due to the nature of natural lighting, and we think this adds to the believability of our video as it is meant to be almost like a diary of the girl’s day. We also used some artificial lighting when filming indoors.
Mise-en-scene was a very important part of our video – for example, it was important that the viewer could see the notebook that the girl was holding. The notebook played an important part in the storyline and featured in some of our stop-motion.
Shots in our music video clearly demonstrate our research into other existing music videos. Kate Nash’s ‘Foundations’ video was where we gained a lot of our inspiration, as we were keen on a similar vintage style, and also liked the small amount of animation in it. It also used a couple of examples of stop-motion which we were very keen to use.
Although not an official music video, we also really liked an animation made for Kate Nash’s ‘The Nicest Thing’. It was very cute and girly and used the idea of hand-drawn animation and doodles, which we were very keen to use.
We also really liked an example of previous student’s work, which was made in 2008 by group R1-17 and based on the song, ‘I Don’t Want To See You’. This particular example used a similar vintage style, and also used the same idea of a ‘projector-effect’, with a frame creating a circle of video, sepia toning, scratches and an old film effect.
A convention of music videos is that the genre might be reflected in types of mise-en-scene, themes, performance, camerawork and editing styles. I think our music video links to this convention as our vintage theme throughout links with the lyrics of the song, and all aspects of the development process reflect the same theme and genre.
Our camerawork has a strong impact on the meaning behind the video – the movement, angles and shot distances are all used as a representation of the band, which is another convention of music videos.
Our digipack design matches the theme of our video, and uses the same template as many others that we researched – it folds over twice to allow room for two CD’s. We also used our research to design a realistic pack that would not look out of place on a supermarket shelf.
Our magazine advert uses conventions of real magazine adverts, as it uses many overlayed images to create depth and texture, but fits in to the theme of our song and band. It has a strong visual link to our digipack and many aspects are similar to create a brand image. It also uses text, which is a common trait of real magazine adverts.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Our main product and ancillary texts are strongly linked and this makes the combination of the two effective. They are both very visual and contain the same themes, which show consistency throughout. Both show attention to detail. One of the advantages of creating our own ancillary texts is that it gave us the opportunity to develop the brand image that is featured in our music video. Our ancillary texts have a continuous theme throughout and similar fonts are used on both. This consistency can be considered as a method of building a band identity and would boost the publicity for the band, making their work instantly recognisable. The digipack is relatively simplistic, whereas the magazine features a little more detail to prevent people getting bored of looking at them. This simplistic approach links to the theme of the music and could be seen as a trademark approach for the band.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We used no footage from our roughcut in our final piece, due to our roughcut being filmed quickly and not very well, and being put together in a short space of time. We had mixed feedback but it mainly said that we used good editing technique, and the theme was fitting to the song. However, we needed more shot and scene variety, and also more performance shots. There was too much variation in the lighting between shots, and our video cut a bit short due to lack of footage. We needed to gain more footage, use more locations, and tidy the video up all round.
As a result of this feedback, we changed pretty much everything about the video and started again from scratch, which was much more successful. One of the final adjustments we made was on the old film effect that we applied to our video, this led to the whole video having a sepia tone and a ‘scratchy’ effect over the top. At some points, we gained feedback that said the sepia toning was too strong, and was working against some of our natural lighting in our video. To sort this, we decided to continue using the old film effect to ensure consistency, but toned down the sepia so in certain places, it was barely visible. This was a lot more successful and we were pleased with the result.
Feedback that we gained from Facebook stated that “idea is good (animation type like) I really like when Hannah is walking towards the trees and the camera turns also when the effects of when she's dancing by the trees are great” and also that “loved the sepia effect in your video it gives it a kind of old film look and it goes really well and also the stop motion parts are really good”.
Feedback from our peers stated that our blog contained sufficient posts and evidence of research, and all fitted together visually with sufficient detail and photographs. However, we should have had a post on general ideas for the digipack, and could have had more colour and images as some of our posts were text only. The feedback mainly said that the animation and lip-synching were strong points, and people liked the effects on the video. However, we could have used a wider variety of effects and a wider variety of still images. Feedback for our digipack said that our track listings were good with a good overall design which linked strongly to the video, but we should have used more images of our main character. And finally, the feedback for our magazine advert said that the overall design was good and links strongly to the digipack, but some aspects were a little hard to read.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used Blogger to regularly update our online blog, with new information, examples and research. This was an effective method and an advantage of media technologies as it meant our blog could be easily edited, added to and was accessible to everyone. In the research stage, we used Youtube to research other videos, both official and also previous students’ work. We also used Myspace to research and contact the band. In the planning stages, we used Photoshop to compile mood boards and also to begin drafts for the poster/postcard etc. In the construction stages, we used Final Cut Express to put together both our roughcut and our final video, and Photoshop for our digipack and poster. We took images for these off both Facebook and Myspace. Our final piece was put on our blog using Vimeo. We also used a camcorder and Final Cut Express to create our evaluation video, in which we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of our video and explain the ideas behind some of the scenes. Modern media technologies definitely benefited our group and video as a whole, and has led to a professional-looking and effective video that we are all very pleased with.
Hannah Rose - Evaluation
Music Video Evaluation
Hannah Rose
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We have created a few links between the lyrics and the visuals, not only are our visuals girly and delicate like the song itself but we have actually written out the lyrics at some points in the video using the stop motion technique. Another point later in the song she mentions a party a couple of times so their are brief party scenes when the music builds up.
I believe we have captured some very 'beautiful' shots with different camera angles, for example the sunset and sun beams gleaming through the tree branches. These were very precise and carefully captured, in contrast to the party scenes which were hand held as we wanted more of a spontanieus and 'wild' look to it, we also thought this would give our music video variation and keep the watchers interested. We got this idea looking at professional music videos as they used a bit of both. The stop motion was also an idea we got from watching some top music videos, we really looked at Kate Nash, 'The Nicest Thing' and 'Foundations'. Her music videos have a soft vintage feel to them which we wanted to create and she used a lot of cute stop motion effects, for example moving around socks and tooth brushes, we took this idea and made it our own.
We thought a lot about the lighting in our shots especially in the morning, night and party scenes, as we didn't want a shot out of place and our video to be jumping from light to dark to light again. We kept it smooth and getting darker slowly like it was a diary of her day. We really like the lighting with the sunset, especially when it created a silhouette as she danced in the trees, again this is all very elegant and girly linking it with our song type.
We have used a few bits for Misi-en-scene, for example the vintage dress and heels, and the girly vintage book she carries everywhere. We even thought about the bredroom, we wanted it simple yet cute, which could represent the song. The landscape senery also had to be very beautiful.
We have a few similarities between our digi-pack covers and professional album covers, for example most are kept very simple which we have done and include images which relate to the band and the style of music they create. Like most bands we have put a picture of the singer on the front cover and basic details like the band name etc. We have also included a bar code, the track listings and quotes.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary texts?
The digi pack and the music video link together very subtly we have a picture on the front cover of the girl in the video and on the back we have an image of the stick man figures which were in the video. We have put swirls on the digi-pack and kept it very simple and elegant using neutral colours. Cream is a colour which is used in both the digi-pack and video, her cardigan, dress, and wall which she sings against is a cream colour and so is the digi-pack background. So to link them we used very simple ways of doing so, however i think it is quite effective.
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We got a lot of feedback on our rough cut saying lots of clips were repeated, there was bad lip syncing, the actress kept giggling and the lighting was poor etc. however this didn't matter as we were not planning to use any of that footage in our final piece. We had a sudden deadline sprung on us so we went to town and filmed anything we could, none contained what we had planned so we re-did it after. This got us much more positive feedback, we are also a lot more happy with it as it was much more what we wanted, and how we originally planned.
An example of our latest feedback is, 'The idea is good (animation) I really like Hannah walking through the trees and the camera turning, and the dancing scenes near the trees are great' We also got a response from the bands manager after mailing them on Myspace showing them our final piece, Looks great, i'll pass it onto the band'
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used a few pages on the internet to help plan, and research our work, for example we used Blogger to record our planning and progress, it was almost a diary/ scrap book showing ideas, comments and what we had done. We used Google and Youtube to research and get ideas, Facebook to get feedback on our work, Myspace to research the band and get in contact with them And Vimeo to upload videos on as this has a higher quality than youtube. All these websites really helped us in some way of another.
We used a few programs too to edit and create our final piece and the ancillary texts. We used photoshop too create pictures, digi-pack and magazines and to create our frame for the lip syncing scenes. Final cut to do all the editing on and I-stop-motion to create the animations where she writes in her book. All were very useful and we couldn't of done our project without them.
Hannah Rose
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We have created a few links between the lyrics and the visuals, not only are our visuals girly and delicate like the song itself but we have actually written out the lyrics at some points in the video using the stop motion technique. Another point later in the song she mentions a party a couple of times so their are brief party scenes when the music builds up.
I believe we have captured some very 'beautiful' shots with different camera angles, for example the sunset and sun beams gleaming through the tree branches. These were very precise and carefully captured, in contrast to the party scenes which were hand held as we wanted more of a spontanieus and 'wild' look to it, we also thought this would give our music video variation and keep the watchers interested. We got this idea looking at professional music videos as they used a bit of both. The stop motion was also an idea we got from watching some top music videos, we really looked at Kate Nash, 'The Nicest Thing' and 'Foundations'. Her music videos have a soft vintage feel to them which we wanted to create and she used a lot of cute stop motion effects, for example moving around socks and tooth brushes, we took this idea and made it our own.
We thought a lot about the lighting in our shots especially in the morning, night and party scenes, as we didn't want a shot out of place and our video to be jumping from light to dark to light again. We kept it smooth and getting darker slowly like it was a diary of her day. We really like the lighting with the sunset, especially when it created a silhouette as she danced in the trees, again this is all very elegant and girly linking it with our song type.
We have used a few bits for Misi-en-scene, for example the vintage dress and heels, and the girly vintage book she carries everywhere. We even thought about the bredroom, we wanted it simple yet cute, which could represent the song. The landscape senery also had to be very beautiful.
We have a few similarities between our digi-pack covers and professional album covers, for example most are kept very simple which we have done and include images which relate to the band and the style of music they create. Like most bands we have put a picture of the singer on the front cover and basic details like the band name etc. We have also included a bar code, the track listings and quotes.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary texts?
The digi pack and the music video link together very subtly we have a picture on the front cover of the girl in the video and on the back we have an image of the stick man figures which were in the video. We have put swirls on the digi-pack and kept it very simple and elegant using neutral colours. Cream is a colour which is used in both the digi-pack and video, her cardigan, dress, and wall which she sings against is a cream colour and so is the digi-pack background. So to link them we used very simple ways of doing so, however i think it is quite effective.
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We got a lot of feedback on our rough cut saying lots of clips were repeated, there was bad lip syncing, the actress kept giggling and the lighting was poor etc. however this didn't matter as we were not planning to use any of that footage in our final piece. We had a sudden deadline sprung on us so we went to town and filmed anything we could, none contained what we had planned so we re-did it after. This got us much more positive feedback, we are also a lot more happy with it as it was much more what we wanted, and how we originally planned.
An example of our latest feedback is, 'The idea is good (animation) I really like Hannah walking through the trees and the camera turning, and the dancing scenes near the trees are great' We also got a response from the bands manager after mailing them on Myspace showing them our final piece, Looks great, i'll pass it onto the band'
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used a few pages on the internet to help plan, and research our work, for example we used Blogger to record our planning and progress, it was almost a diary/ scrap book showing ideas, comments and what we had done. We used Google and Youtube to research and get ideas, Facebook to get feedback on our work, Myspace to research the band and get in contact with them And Vimeo to upload videos on as this has a higher quality than youtube. All these websites really helped us in some way of another.
We used a few programs too to edit and create our final piece and the ancillary texts. We used photoshop too create pictures, digi-pack and magazines and to create our frame for the lip syncing scenes. Final cut to do all the editing on and I-stop-motion to create the animations where she writes in her book. All were very useful and we couldn't of done our project without them.