Draft for the third evaluation question.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

In all stages of planning, filming and post production we have been given feedback from our teachers about what would work and what might not be as effective as we would like. This helped form an idea of what aspects to use in our music video and digipak/poster. For example, after our draft it was pointed out to us that to make our music video more interesting and in order for the audience to understand the narrative we had to have some connection to the lyrics through performance e.g. lip-syncing. We took on this advice and looked back over our research and decided that this was the best thing to do to make it look more professional and like something OneRepublic would produce.

However we were aware that our teachers were not our target audience so we also asked our friends to comment on our draft. Their opinion matched our teachers comments and thought it would look better and they could connect with the video more if someone was lip-syncing. Also Katie, who was also in our video, commented it would look better if there was something to break up the repetition of country then city shots. From this feedback we then decided to include performance in the video as more people than not said it would improve the video.

When we had finished the music video we uploaded in on to YouTube from there we published it on several different sites to get audience feedback. We posted it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and our own blog and invited people to comment and welcomed constructive criticism.

It was good to post it on something like Tumblr because we got feedback from people outside our circle of friends who were still part of our target audience. We received a lot of positive feedback about our London shots and the fact we used these shots in black & white. They felt the London location made it look more professional and reminded them off mainstream pop video like OneRepublic. They also liked how we used a lot of the iconic London landmarks which is good because it shows that we have appealed to our target audience by shooting in London.

We also received a few negative comments about it. Some people commented that it was cloudy in the horse shots which confused them as the rest of the country shots had been in sunshine. Also some people did not understand the connection with Katie and Bank until the end and think it would have been better to explain it right at the beginning. However we found that some people liked that you don't know the two are connected until the end as its a twist in the story. Some also said that it doesn't matter that the connection between the two characters were not obvious from the start because a lot music videos cut between narrative and performance with no connection between the band and characters in the story. So opinions are divided on the details of the narrative but most of the comments have been positive and our target audience really liked the dark London shots vs the bright green country side shots.

DRAFT: Evaluation Question 4

Media Evaluation: Evaluation Question 4 How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

                

Technology has played a crucial role from the very start of the course, it has helped us communicate on an instant level where we are able to get a hold of each other whenever we wanted. Whether if it was discussing new ideas and concepts that had popped into our heads when we weren’t with each other, it gave us a good foundation for us to work on

For our music video, we were able to use a variety of technologies which helped us to achieve the result we wanted. I would say that the backbone of the whole video making process was the use of Blogger, this let us publish our own individual ideas that could be incorporated into the video itself. We were also able to see different ideas each one of us had and take influences from each other to create the piece of work we wanted. For our research and planning, we published posts that expressed the thoughts and ideas we had at the time, the positive points about Blogger is that it allows you to embed pictures and videos from Youtube and other online video platforms to support the ideas you wanted to portray. The most important online media platform we used for communicating o one another was Twitter, this was a practical choice because it allowed to communicate with each other in and outside of school when we weren’t with each other. Another positive aspect of twitter was that there is an app available for smartphones, which gave us instant communication as the tweets would come instantaneously and we would be able to tweet back with a number of minutes. As we had planned to feature shots of London in the video, technology has us in a huge way in terms of organizing and planning the trip. We used the internet to find out the cheapest hotel and train fares so we could save money and use that for our time there, the internet also helped find out what the weather was going to be like in London at the time, this was a crucial aspect of the video as we wanted to portray London as this gloomy and lonely city.

For the making of our video, we used a FujiFilm SLR camera which gave us the opportunity to shoot the shots in HD. This offered high quality shots, which we thought would make the overall appearance of the video more professional and high quality. The camera was also lightweight and featured a strap which we could put around necks for extra safety and support as walking around London with an expensive camera wasn’t particularly a good idea. After we had shot our videos, the transfer from the camera to the computer was very easy as all of the clips had been saved to a memory card; the computers which we used for our editing did not have a memory card reader so we had to acquire one by buying one off the internet. The transfer was fairly fast and easy to do, we made sure that we had a backup of the shots we had done so far so we used an external-hard drive to put the clips onto incase anything happened to the memory card.

To edit our video, we chose to use Adobe Premiere Elements that was available on the school computers. We chose to use the computers at school because they were far more faster than the ones we had at home, at first, we were hesitant when it came to using Premiere as we hadn’t had any experience with the software before. But after experimenting with the software, we become very compatible and allowed us to edit the clips and shots we had. This particular video editing software had a very friendly user interface where we could easily navigate to the clips we wanted and we were also able to cut the clips easily as well. Premiere also had a variety of video settings where we were able to change the appearance of our clips, for example in our video, we chose to use the Black & White filter that was available, we thought that this was effective because it portrayed the dark gloomy isolation we wanted to convey to the audience watching it.

The images I used for my Digipak and Poster were shot by the same camera I had used to shoot the music video; this particular camera gave crisp and clear high quality images of the city shots I wanted to put in my digipak and poster. The editing software I had used for both products was Adobe Photoshop Elements, I already had some experience with this software as I had already used it in my AS year of Media Studies so when it came to making the actual products, I knew exactly what I was doing when it came to what I wanted to do on the program. I found that this program gave me a variety of different methods to achieve the product I wanted, it offers a range of artistic effects you can apply to the images that would make it more interesting to look at. 

DRAFT: Evaluation Question 3

Media Evaluation: Evaluation Question 3 What have you learned from your audience feedback?

                

Throughout the course, we have received feedback from our teachers telling us what improvements and changes were needed in order to get the grade we wanted. I think that this has been the biggest influence because it is them who will be marking the grade although the music video wasn’t meant to be made for that type of audience. The audience we aimed for at the start of the course was mainly mainstream music listeners who liked whatever was on the charts.

                

While making the music video, we regularly posted on our blog to tell our teachers what we were up to and what ideas we had at the time. I thought that this was a great way of communicating to them when we weren’t in class, the blog become a great foundation for music video to sit on. The comments from our teacher would be their personal opinions saying what they thought did and didn’t work, not only did we receive comments from our teachers, we also asked our fellow classmates to also give their personal opinions about what they did and didn’t like about our idea, we were also open to constructive criticism as this would help us make a music video which would attract people around the same age range as they would be the desirable age group we’re trying to attract.

                

When the Music Video was finished, published the video onto a number of media platforms such as Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and of course, our Blog. We thought that it would be a good idea to do it on a number of different platforms because it brings a variety group of people. We were able to get feedback from people we didn’t know on Tumblr, they gave us negative and positive feedback which was helpful for us to know what we needed to improve on for the draft. Twitter and Facebook allowed us to get feedback from the people that we knew and had a relationship with, the comments and feedback we got from this were mainly positive. 

DRAFT: Evaluation Question 2

Media Evaluation: EVALUATION 2. How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

                

To make sure that the combination of my main product, the Music Video and the Ancillary Texts, Digipak and Poster was effective, I had to ensure that I created a ‘branding’ across these products that would make it recognisable to their fans.

Starting off with the Music Video, as this was our main product. I had to base my other two Ancillary texts around this in order to get the overall image I wanted of the band. As the music video only featured the lead singer, I thought that it would be a good idea to not include a picture of the band for the ancillary texts. This would ruin the continuity and it wouldn’t be as effective. As the music video was very heavily based in London, I wanted to carry this idea of using the city shots into my other texts which I had created.

For my Digipak, I was thinking about the overall image of the band, I wanted their music to come across instead of how they looked. So I thought that it would be a good idea to just feature the city shots I had taken in London while we were shooting, this gives the digipak and Music Video a much closer connection making it easier for the fans and people seeing it on the shelves to relate it to the band. For the digipak, I also kept a very simple colour scheme; the reason for this is because I didn’t want it to become too busy and amateur looking. So I stuck with the colour red as this is the colour that in my opinion, really describes the iconic city of London. Whether it’s the classic city buses, old telephone boxes, or even the guard uniforms at Buckingham Palace, I think that red is the most attractive and best choice to include in my digipak.

               

For the poster, I had chosen to use the same image as I had chosen for the front cover of the digipak. I thought that this worked really well together as a combination of branding because by using the same image for the digipak front cover and the poster, it makes it easier for the audience to recognise who that image belongs to. I thought that this worked very well as a branding technique as I hadn’t featured any members of the band on either the front cover of the digipak or the poster.

Overall, I think that the combination of all the products I have created flow very well together. I have used the city to be the main thing element to help tie everything else together. I thought that this was very effective as it showed where the video was set and by using the same Black & White filter as I did in the video, it idea of loneliness and isolation still flows throughout whole products.

DRAFT: Evaluation Question 1

Media Evaluation: EVALUATION 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The first step we took in making our main product was choosing the song to base our Music Video around. We had come up with a list of songs which we both commonly liked, and listened to each of them individually numerous times, but the song we liked the most was ‘Good Life’ by OneRepublic. We began to understand the lyrics of the song and started to map out ideas in our minds of what we had wanted in this particular video, the upbeat tempo of the song also really helped us to figure out the camera angles and cuts we wanted so it would portray the storyline effectively all the while still looking professional.

                

We started to look at other videos by different artists and bands to try and get inspiration for what we wanted to do; the idea which we both liked was to shoot some of the scenes in London. The reason for this is because in the very first line of the song, it says ‘Woke up in London yesterday’, so by connecting to the literal meaning of the song, it would give the audience an instant connection to where the video is set. We watched numerous videos on YouTube and really liked the ones which portrayed an isolated atmosphere; our favourites were Snow Patrol’s ‘Open Your Eyes’ and The Verve’s ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’. We really liked use of having a one shot video like the one used for ‘Open Your Eyes’, this particular video featured a point of view from the camera, mounted on the front of a car driving around Paris. I thought that this was very effective as there wasn’t hardly any editing at all, I really liked the simplicity of it and I think that this is the reason why it is so effective. The other video which we really liked was ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’; we really liked this particular video because it portrayed isolation where he wasn’t really connected with the world around him. Even though he is walking down a busy street with people walking past him, when we were watching the video, it didn’t seem like he was in sync with everyone else. So, when we had decided that we were going to use the city for our music video, we began to realise that the song wasn’t talking about how great the city really is, so to prevent the video from not making sense, we thought that it would be a good idea to do a contrast between the City and the Country. This way, we could incorporate the iconic London landmarks which would make the video interesting for the audience to watch as they would instantly recognise it and it would flow with the song as it talks about the ‘Good’ parts of life.

In the process of coming up with ideas, we had to factor in the theorists such as Goodwin and Mulvey. Starting with Goodwin, we tried to incorporate the link between the actual lyrics of the song to the visuals of the video, an example of this would be the London shots we included in the very start of the video, referencing to the lyrics of the song 'Woke up In London Yesterday' and cutting to the shots in the city itself therefore amplifying the lyrics to the audience making them more connected and involved with the video. When thinking about Mulvey, we took her theory of the 'Male Gaze' and applied it to our Music Video, as we featured a female actor for the majority of the video, we think that this is shown through the use of camera angles and mis-en-scene such as the clothing she wore in the video.
                

At first, we challenged the usual conventions of not having a performance in our music video. But when we had finished our draft, we had found that it didn’t quite work as well as we had hoped. So in order to fix this, we had decided to put a performer into the video singing parts of the song making sure we cut into the right moments so the video would flow properly. We thought that it would be strange to the audience as to why there is a male singer and a female actress walking about the city and country, so we had come up with an idea of creating a story behind that the two were in a relationship in the past and he sings about her while she walks around lost and vulnerable by herself. To make sure that the audience got this, we featured a shot of the singer holding a picture of her in his phone and then  dropping it onto a seat, where the camera zoomed up to see her clearly.

                

Looking at my digipak, I think I have again challenged the usual conventions of featuring the artist on the cover. I have done this because I wanted to keep the band sort of mysterious from the audience; I wanted their music to come across more than what they looked like. The idea of me not featuring the band on the front cover came from the Kings of Leon’s Come Around Sundown and Coldplay’s Viva La Vida where they both featured an illustration, not themselves. I kept to all the images used on the digipak Black & White so it would instantly connect with the Music Video. I had chosen the colour red because of the iconic things around London, for example with the old telephone boxes, old buses, letter boxes. I wanted to incorporate this colour because I wanted it to relate more to the setting of the video even though you don’t see the colour of these objects in the video because it is Black & White.

                

The inspiration behind the poster was the same as my digipak, I chose to use the same picture as I did for that because I wanted to create a branding that would it make recognisable to the band’s fans and it would also help distinguish who they are. When looking at my research on posters, I found that most of them featured the artist posing in a strong position to get people’s attention. I would say that again, like my digipak, I have challenged the usual conventions of posters because I did not follow the usual conventions of putting an artist or a band on there. But I thought that this would work because I wanted the band to be more mysterious, I wanted the sound of their music to represent who they are, not what they look like. Like the Gorillaz how they have animated characters playing them in their videos.

                

Draft for first evaluation question.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Using Goodwin’s theory about key features of music videos we have made an illustration type music video where we have illustrated the meaning of the lyrics through the visuals. By doing this we have created a connection between the lyrics and visuals which allows the audience to understand story behind the song which makes and keeps them interested. For the genre of music we chose illustration music videos are most common because they need to appeal to wide, mainstream audience. Large pop-rock bands don’t often make a disjuncture video for example because it has more connection with indie, alternative bands who appeal to a more niche audience. As well as creating a relationship between the lyrics and visuals we connected the music and visuals through the use of Bank lip-syncing to give the video elements of performance. It is more common than not to have performance integrated into the narrative of the music video so we followed this convention even though to begin with we were planning on just having a narrative. Having watched Snow Patrol’s Open Your Eyes we looked into shooting in one shot as well as not including performance however we decided that the one shot would be too difficult to achieve in the city where we had no control over the passers-by and traffic.

Later we also decided to use performance because the narrative did not relate enough to the lyrics to allow the audience to understand why Katie walking around in the city and country. It also gave us the chance to give the audience something else to look at as it is quite a long song and the shots of Katie in the country and city started to feel repetitive. Once we had decided to use performance we included the singer as much as possible which is a convention that most mainstream pop bands follow to show the star image which the record companies like because it appeals to the audience and fans will be draw to the music video if the band feature often. We decided to just have Bank singing as the lead singer and not include the two other band members or instruments to show the connection between Bank and Katie in the narrative. Like OneRepublic and a lot of other mainstream bands we have used the typical convention of lots of close-up shots of the lead singer.

Mulvey’s theory of the female image in media applies to our music video because Katie was a large feature. Mulvey states that in media females are seen as the object and the males as the subject this could be applied to our music video as Bank looks out at the audience and through the lip-syncing has a voice whereas Katie is passive and is viewed as an object rather than a subject.

Goodwin also states that iconography is used in music videos to portray the genre of the band. Mainstream pop will show their star image through designer brands and popular high-end gadgets. For example in OneRepublic’s Say (All I Need), Ryan Tedder the lead singer is seen wearing Lacoste trainers in a close-up shot of his feet, this appeals to the audience as it shows they are fashionable and up-to-date with what is “cool” and popular. 

We have used iconography in terms of mise-en-scene to show that our band The Empty Crowd and Bank as the lead singer is part of the mainstream pop genre by using a shot of his BlackBerry.

We followed the typical conventions of an illustration music video by linking the shots and the added effects to the music. For example at the beginning the song has quite a heavy beat so we just used city shots. Then when the music became softer we introduced the country shots.

Also having decided to include performance aspects in the video we followed the typical convention of cross cutting in between narrative and performance like most pop music videos do. Nearly all of OneRepublic's video have some aspect of performance, lip-syncing or the band playing their instruments.

Levi-Strauss' theory of binary opposites applies to our music video due to the contrast of the dark, gloomy city location and bright, green, colourful countryside. Also through the moods of Katie isolation and depression in the city and happiness and freedom in the country.

In other ways we have used existing conventions by creating a concept that we have carried through from the music video to the digipak and poster. A lot of bands in all different genres use the idea of concept. We decided to use a concept which would be clear to the audience and allow them to identify the music video and digipak/poster were connected and belonged to the same band.

We were initially inspired by Coldplay who used the concept of the French Revolution for their album "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends" Their concept is shown in their music video through the mise-en-scene; costume of the band, especially Chris' military style jacket, visuals and the use of the tricolour colour scheme. The album artwork used the iconic image of the Revolution, Delacroix's painting of "Liberty Leading the People". Also their music video of Viva La Vida featured Coldplay performing the song on a warped, blurry backdrop of the same painting.
This clearly shows the audience the linking of the concept across their products so we decided to use a concept of city vs country. We had decided to shoot in London as in a lot of mainstream the locations are iconic e.g. Paris, London, New York, Hollywood etc. to attract the audience as it shows the celebrity, luxury and traveling on tour lifestyle of bands and artists. We were also inspired by OneRepublic's music video Say (All I Need) which is shot in Paris and the narrative involves the band walking around the streets with lots of establishing shots of the iconic landmarks in Paris.

As I wanted to show the country vs city concept clearly in my digipak to the audience I used photography of the city and countryside next to each other and manipulated the images to make the contrast clear.

As I was using photography as the main feature of my digipak and poster I decided to use the idea of polaroid photos by using a white border round the pages like on Charlie Simpsons' Young Pilgrim album artwork.

I decided very early on that I did not want any image of the band in the digipak or on the poster which is quite unusual for a mainstream  pop-rock band however not that unusuals for a concept album - like Coldplay who do not feature in their album Viva La Vida. Therefore I decided the concept should be the main feature with photography portraying this.

I was inspired by Oasis' cover of "(What's The Story) Morning Glory?". I thought the shot of the ordinary street was really effective and eye-catching and I decided to change it to suit our concept of loneliness in the city - to give this effect I ensure there was no obvious subject of the photograph and with the long almost empty street the onlooker feels distant and detatched. I developed this further by putting it in black & white to show the gritty, lifeless feel of the city which contrasts with the green, colour photographs of the country. This also links my digipak to the style of the music video that we edited to have the city shots in black & white and the country in colour.

For my front cover I wanted to create an image that really showed the idea of the city vs country concept. I was inspired by the silhouette of the tree on OneRepublic's Dreaming Out Loud album. I googled tree silhouettes to see what shape would be best and was further inspired by this result.

For the country pages I wanted the coutryside more appealing than the city images. In the draft I simply used photographs without a subject which did not make it appealing and gave the onlooker the same distant feeling as the city photos which did not show the concept enough. To bring this across I used the idea of the blog Dear Photograph because it makes the subject more interesting as there is an obvious connection between the photograph and the location and suggests a past and a present.

Final Music Video.