Task 4 Evaluation - Technologies used

Blogger

For our coursework, we were required to use Blogger in order to keep track and record of all of our developments pre, during and post production.

Benefits

Blogger enabled us to neatly organise our work into a way where it followed the checklist correctly and, if we made any changes to one of our posts, we only needed to hit the update button. This allowed for instantaneous sharing with our teachers as they could follow our blogs and then give us recommendations on how to improve our work through the comments system as it is a web 2.0 service.

Difficulties

Some videos we uploaded such as the focus group and the final music video didn’t fit in the blog post guidelines, which made the blog look unattractive.

Prezzi

We used Prezzi to create an alternative way of posting on Blogger, so that the posts would not be just essay style posts.

Benefits

Prezzis were a unique way of posting; they offered something different which made the posts and the blog itself more appealing.

Difficulties

Difficulties encountered include the graphic user interface being complicated and, at times, inaccessible. There was also no spelling check with in the program meaning that you had to proofread it yourself. This meant that human error could sometime play a role in words being spelled wrong.

Apple Macs

Apple Macs were the foundations for everything we did during our project. These contained all the software we needed to carry out our tasks.

Benefits

The Apple Macs had all the software we needed, to produce our professional media products. Websites weren’t restricted when we needed to use the websites for our blogs and our media products, which were a great help to us.

Difficulties

Difficulties encountered whilst using the Apple Macs, include the inability to bring up the context menu without pressing two buttons, the keyboards which are uncomfortable to use, the inability to truly maximise a window, the inability for Safari to properly render HTML, the desktop that was cluttered throughout the project, the inefficient cooling mechanism that made the Mac extremely hot while rendering our project, the locking of certain applications by technical support, the lack of a word processor that matches the windows version.

Digital Cameras

These were high quality cameras that enabled us to create professional looking shots.

Benefits

The benefits of using the digital cameras, included their high quality image, they’re lightweight and their ease of use.

Difficulties

The cameras had quite a short battery life, and took a long time to transfer the shots onto Final Cut Pro.

Final Cut Pro

This piece of software enabled us to use professional effects and editing techniques, in order to create a music video that was of professional standards.

Benefits

It had all the required tools we needed to create a professional standard of music video. It offered a wide range of different effects and filters to insert over our video. This included color correction techniques such as saturation, adding graininess and reducing the brightness.

Difficulties

The difficulties faced whilst using Final Cut Pro were those such as the software was quite complex to use.







Photoshop

Photoshop helped us create our digipak and digipak advert; this piece of software came in very handy when it came to creating these media products.

Benefits

The benefits of Photoshop, we feel were the fact that it was easy to use, it produced professional looking media products for our work, and showed professionalism throughout.

Difficulties

One of the major difficulties with Photoshop is that it can be very hard to use without prior experience or tutorials. Because of this, Photoshop was much harder to pick up and use compared to other products but when we got the hang of it, the program was easy to use.

Digital Audio Recorders

We used this piece of hardware to record our voices to be used with in a directors’ commentary.

Benefits

Benefits included with the digital audio recorders, were that they were easy and simple to use, and helped us create a clear sounding directors commentary.

YouTube

We used this video-sharing site to share our focus groups and our music video, and to analyse and research existing music videos.

Benefits

YouTube was an extremely useful website for us. It allowed us easy access to our own videos when it came to sharing them between the group for our own individual uploads. This was also useful for researching already existing music videos.

Difficulties

YouTube was blocked on certain Apple Macs and therefore was not always the most reliable website to use. It often required an admin to unblock it occasionally, which was inconvenient.

Evaluation Question 3

User Feedback

Charlie - In my opinion, I think the video has great potential, the video itself is done quite professionally. There are a lot of different angles and shots in there, there's a lot of good effects in there too, like the darker effects. However, I do feel there are too many band shots in there, there should be more of the main character and what his story is.

Nathan - This is a great piece of film, I like the range of shots and effects they've used too, I'm also a fan of this genre of music. But, I think there are too many performance based shots in there, the effects over some of the performance shots are too dark, they need to be lighter like the other ones, they also need some more shots of the main characters.

What we have learnt from this feedback...

We have learnt a lot from this feedback, after reading these, and after watching the video back again, we can see that there are a lot of performance shots in our video, too many in fact, and that we definitely need some more shots of our main character, Simon.

Positive Feedback

Quite a few positive comments we've heard are that our video has great performance shots, and that the video isn't over edited or hasn't been loaded with unnecessary effects either. What also has been said is that Simon's emotions are portrayed really well.


Negative

A lot of negative comments we heard, was that there was too many performance based shots included in our video, yes they were good, but there were too many of them. Also that the story of Simon, didn't come across very well, it wasn't clear why Simon killed himself, because there was too many performance based shots.

Similar future tasks...

For the future, we think we will adjust effects and ask for feedback, whilst creating a similar piece of media, that way we are able to get the things that people feel are wrong with our video, adjusted so that it makes sense, this will allow us to spend more time in making the changes to the product, then that way, we can gain a greater insight into how our work looks, in the eyes of our audience.

Directors Commentary

Our Final Music Video...

Focus group for other music videos...

Focus Group for our video...

Digiak Advert

Digipak - Wheels

Friday 2nd December - Update

Today we did quite a lot of editing for our video, tidying it up, making sure every word sung was in sync and making sure the effects were correct too. We also edited our clips to make them suitable for rock music video conventions.

Thursday 3rd November - Update

Today we uploaded our filmed clips, and just spent the time loading all the clips onto the blog, next lesson we will spend the time editing and adding different professional effects.

Filming in music studio - 31st Oct

Today we filmed at Scream studios in Croydon to film our performance shots, we got a lot done, and uploaded it the same day. We need to film a little more though.

Digipak Advert Analysis'

When digipaks are released, they have to be made known to the fans of the artists. This is why advertisements for them are produced and promoted...

Rihanna's loud digipak

This is the advert for Rihanna's loud album digipak, it shows her in a field with what looks like a dress covered with red roses that she's holding against her, again this suggests that this album is love song themed because of the overuse of roses The fact she's naked, I think reveals that she's an individual that likes to feel sexy most of the time, she's quite a sexual person in herself.

I believe the audience for this digipak, would be big fans of Rihanna, probably between the ages of 12 - 35, I also think the social demographic for this album would be C1, C2, D and E, I think this because I think the general RnB wouldn't appeal to the more upper class social group of A and B, I feel they'd have a much different taste in music. The audience, in my opinion, would be people into RnB music and some soul, I think this aswell, as the music Rihanna produces is kind of RnB and soul genre of music.

The main conventions of an album advert are

• Bright colours
• A picture of the artist on the advert
• Eye - catching font
• Date of album/single release
• Title of the album
• Artists name

This album advert covers most of these conventions, and is a 'typical' album advert. The font is modern, it matches and fits in with the whole advert. The

colouring is done well to match the album digipak and is that 'passionate' red colour, again, suggesting a love song themed album and her hair suggesting a totally different mood, a fiery anger themed album.

The choice of imagery of her, kneeling down clutching onto the dress, suggest that the dress means something to her, that she may have wore it when she was with her love interest, meaning that she wants her love interest back with her. This album advert doesn't give a lot away, which is what we want from an album advert.

Red Hot Chili Peppers digipak

The Red Hot Chili Peppers digipak album advert also does not give a lot away.

Just by looking at the album cover, all it suggests is that it may be space themed album, due to the planets and space looking background, it shows a few of the 'usual' conventions of an album advert such as:

• Bright colours
• Eye - catching font
• Date of album/single release
• Title of the album
• Artists name

But other than that, nothing is given away. The choice of imagery is a strange feature, it shows the words 'Stadium Arcadium' which doesn't suggest much, but then in the background there are planets,stars and space, suggesting an album thats 'out of this world' from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the dark colouring suggests the album is a mystery to itself too and so does the simple but interesting design and layout.

The target audience for this digipak, I think would be fans of alternative rock and some rock fans, also I think the social demographic for this is B, C1, C2, D and E, I believe this as a lot of the middle - upper class are into the rock genre of music. The age range for this alternative rock digipak, I would say is 20 - 45, I believe this as a lot of older groups of people, seem to be into this rather than most of the younger age group

Saturday 17th September - Update

Today was the filming of our first shots, getting used to the types of professional shots. These were establishing shots for the first part of our music video, these went well and we got a lot done.

List of Props

The props we will be using are as follows;

Bag
Picture
Guitar
Drum Kit
Bass
Microphone x 2
Amp- x 2
Microphone speaker x 2
Drug look-a-likes

Questionnaire - Music Videos

The aim of this questionnaire is to find out:

• What type of music videos people like
• Why they like them
• What they don't like about some music videos
• What they think of our ideas so far

Questionnaire

Q: What style/type of music video interests you?

A:

Q: What do you like about that style of music video?

A:


Q: What is it about other styles you don't like?

A:


Q: Could you give two examples of music videos, one of which you like and the other of one you don't like?

A:

A:


Our Ideas:

Q: Do you like our ideas so far? (If yes what? - If no, what would you change?)

A:

Storyboards

Crew List

Behind the scenes

- Marcus - Main filmer, editor, digipak creator
- Scott - Filmer, editor, digipak advert creator, digital aritist
- Jack - Main Filmer, Main editor,
- Stephen Main filmer, Main editor, actor
- Jason (Technical Support)

Starring:

- Stephen - Bass player
- Tom - Singer
- Ryan - Drummer
- Jack - Guitarist
- Simon - Actor for narrative

Analysis of Similar Media Products

Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Californication Music Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFMLARtqxCY

In my opinion, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers music video for 'Californication' is an extremely clever piece of media. It shows great professionalism and quality, that it actually looks like a real video game,

they're use of graphics and effects are outstanding and its one of the best music videos I've seen. The lighting and the different locations within the video, keeps the audience entertained throughout.

They're graphics and characters are of great quality and it really does look like a real video game, on the market already. The idea of having a video game is a creative and very good idea, it's unique, creative clever and works really well. When the fans of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers saw this, I bet they didn't expect this. This was something different from them, because most of their videos have always been what we would consider 'just another music video'.

My own opinion of this video is that it's a very creative, colourful, and clever video.

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody Music Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ&ob=av2e

I've chosen this video to analyse as it's, in my opinion, a truly great video. The first few minutes in the song are quite emotional, it tells a story of a young man who killed a man, and he can't explain why he done it, or what his feelings are, the lyrics that suggest this are 'mama, just killed a man, put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger, now

he's dead'. This song's beginning does have emotion tied in within it, because of the fact a

young boy has thrown his life away by killing someone. The whole song is about him not caring

at all, he just doesn't care any more.

The editing used is extremely clever, considering the era it was released in. The editing consists of all members of the bands heads, put together in a diamond shape, it also shows them singing the lyrics at the same time as each other, this is extremely effective and shows great creativity and shows the sadness within the song, implied by their sad faces throughout the video. Then in parts it cuts to performance based techniques and shows them playing the song on instruments, the lighting around them is dark suggesting a set of depressing lyrics and meaning.

Bon Jovi - Always Music Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BMwcO6_hyA&ob=av2e

Bon Jovi's 'always' video really captures what a narrative based video should be. It tells a love story of a young man missing his girlfriend who has gone with another man, it fits in perfectly with the lyrics of the song and certainly the visuals, it shows him at some points looking at pictures of his girlfriend and having flashbacks of when they were together. It shows emotion and provides the target audience of young people in love, with something they can relate to.

The video shows him depressed and 'moping' around looking at the floor, because of his

girlfriend leaving him for someone new. It also shows him releasing his anger at not being able to get his girlfriend back, where he starts throwing things around the room due to this. This video relates to Laura Mulvey's male 'gaze' theory, showing his girlfriend under dressed and flaunting herslef at him. This video objectifies women, and shows that women are only there to look pretty and be looked at by men. This video is a good example of a narrative based music video.

Detailed Description of Target Audience

Our target audience for 'wheels' by Foo Fighters, is fans of the 'alternative rock' genre, and also fans of the 'Foo Fighters'. People also with an interest in this kind of music, some young people and some older people, for example from the ages of 15 - 23 and maybe older. We also believe our target audience will be within the social demographic of E and D, this is because its aimed at younger people and they're unemployed and have little money, and may be able to relate to this song.

People who play instruments, such as guitar and bass, may also have a strong interest in our video considering the instruments going to be used within it. This may attract them to the song and may make them want to listen to it if they see that these instruments are in it, before they start viewing it.

This is mainly aimed at young people, this is because the lyrics portray when a girl breaks up with a boy and then he finds someone else and moves on, and some young people may be able to relate to this in some way.

Our music video will offer some of this to our audience...

• Escapism
• Entertainment
• Education
• Identification.

Our target audiences favourite media such as films, would be films such as dark horror thrillers, or psychological thrillers. This is because our target audience are fans of rock music, which is mostly a dark genre, so I believe they would be associated with dark films also. I believe they will like other dark rock artists as well as the Foo Fighters such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Rage Against the Machine.

Overall our target audience is young people, who love rock artists, who also love dark films and other dark types of media. Also people that watch music videos for escapism, entertainment, education and identification.

Focus Group - Music Videos

Need to upload...

Goodwin's and Laura Mulveys analysis of Music Videos

Goodwin's and Laura Mulveys theories are different ideas and theorys of thinking. Here this explains them...

Andrew Goodwins Theory

Andrew Goodwin's book 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory', he talks about theories within media texts and especially music videos. His first point explains 'genre signifiers', talking about how you can tell what genre the music video is by certain characteristics within it, for example a dark looking music video, with people dressed in dark clothes and playing guitars under dark lighting signifies a rock genre music video.

His second point, states how lyrics on songs are linked into music video visuals. For example, some artists choose to make their video similar to lyrics. His third point says that sometimes links are made between the music and the visuals, for example an increasing bass or aplifying sound.

His third point states how the cameramen have to provide a lot of close up shots of the lead singer or main artist. This is because if the audience see a lot of them, then this attracts the fans of the artist, and it will automatically grab the audiences attention.

Fourth says that 'voyeurism' is used a lot in music videos. 'Voyeurism' meaning spying sexually on a female, objectifying them, making them look inferior to you, making them look like she is just there to be pretty and dress sexually. For example, in videos, the camera would be in the male star of the videos perspective looking at a females body when she walks in a room, this is objectifying woman, and this is used to attract audiences in music videos.

His fifth point says that in many music videos, he has found a lot of intertextual references. Intertextual references make the audience feel clever, this is a reason that artists do it, but also to show their creative side.

This is Andrew Goodwins theory of music videos, here's Laura Mulvey's 'gaze' theory...

Laura Mulvey's 'gaze' theory is a theory that states that media is produced through the eyes of men. For example, in films and music videos there are a lot of under-dressed women flaunting themselves. This is done to attract an audience, but it is also done because this is what society has led to, this is what people are used to, under-dressed women walking round trying to impress men. This is why Laura Mulvey's gaze theory suggests every type of media is produced through the eyes of a man.

Categories of Music Videos

There are three types of music videos...

Performance Based

These videos are shown with the band performing throughout the whole video. Artists in the rock genre frequently use this category. They use it as they like people to see them performing in their video, and not only that, the people like to see the bands performing in the video. An example of a performance video would be Guns N Roses' 'sweet child o' mine', throughout the video it shows them performing the song...

Narrative Based

A narrative based music video is a music video that tells a story, all the way through the video it shows someone's life, or of a situation to do with love or another subject. Songs that are featured in films, usually would use narrative based music videos, as they show clips from the film. For example, Bon Jovi's 'always', tells a story about him in love with a woman, but is not a reference to a film.

Concept Based

A concept based music video is based on a single idea, it uses the same filming technique or camera angle throughout, or it uses the same editing all the way through. Its basically the same thing all the way through the video with some changes within. An example is Ok Go - 'Here it goes again', the video is 4 people all walking along different treadmills, and doing different things on each treadmill, its a simplistic idea but still keeps the audience entertained somehow...

Intertextuality in Music Videos

Intertextuality is a clever way of making your audience feel clever, it gives them a sense of being intellegent as they know the media reference linked in with the music video. Intertextuality has happened in quite a few music videos, for example...

Eminem - 'We made you'
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSdKmX2BH7o

Eminem's 'we made you' video contains a few references to other media forms. In the video, he dresses up as a number of characters, for example he references the 'Dukes of Hazzard' in his video, he has a woman, dressed as 'Daisy Duke' from the TV series and eating a cheeseburger, dancing in front of the iconic 1969 Dodge Charger, also known as 'General Lee' from the TV series and film. He also dresses up as 'Elvis Presley' and acts as him doing 'Jailhouse Rock', the same dance routine and the same clothes he wore, this suggests he is paying homage to him. In it, he also mocks Star Trek, he is dressed in same clothes and does certain things to mock the TV series and film. So overall, this music video is very intertextual.

Robert Palmer - addicted to love and Shania Twain - Man, I feel like a woman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJL4UGSbeFg&ob=av2e
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcATvu5f9vE&ob=av2e

Robert Palmers' 'addicted to love', contains women dancing behind Robert Palmer in black short dresses in front of a black background, all with same features, and all playing instruments. This looks extremely similar to Shania Twains 'man I feel like a woman', where she has dancing men behind her in front of a black and red background, all wearing tight red tops and playing instruments, this is similar but the opposite to Robert Palmer's video, and is paying homage to Robert Palmer. Quite a clever set of videos.

In our video...

We're not going to use any intertextuality in our video, our video is going to be quite a serious one, one with a message. These types of videos do not usually have it in them, because intertextual references are usually seen as a comedy feature in a music video.

Research into the Music industry

Research into the music industry

View more presentations from srafc14.

Conventions for Music Videos

There are many different conventions for music video genres, but the main conventions of music videos as a whole are...

Many occasions, artists have been performing in the video.

The lyrics of songs are shown and represented in the video.

Editing pace fits into the pace of the music.

Dress codes show the songs genre immediately.

Objects used in the video reflect the genre and mood of the music.

Most videos have a story to them, linked in with the vocals of the song.

The mood of the song reflects the genre of the song.

Genre specific conventions:

Pop:

Colourful settings and venues for the videos.

Fast paced, upbeat music.

There are always no instruments shown in pop videos, only the artists singing or acting in the video.

Pop videos have a lot of dancing within them too.
Camera shots are usually medium to long shots.

Rock:

Rock videos settings are quite dark and mysterious, not a lot of colour compared to pop music videos.

Most rock videos have the band performing in the video, instruments and them singing are in the video.
Fast cut shots are used to represent the pace of the video.

Close ups showing the lead artist.

Artists are usually dressed in black, dark clothes.

Hip Hop/Rap/RnB

The music videos for hip hop usually contain a lot of expensive, sought after items and objects such as expensive cars, gadgets, jewellery etc.

Hip hop videos also mostly contain women, that are dressed in a sexualised way. To attract the audiences attention.

These genres always contain some form of dancing too.

Equipment Needed

We will need a range of equipment to film this video, equipment such as...

• A camera
• Tripod
• Costumes
• 2x Guitars
• A set of drums
• Bass
• 3x amps
• 2x microphone stands
• 2x microphone
• Speaker for the microphone.

Digipak Analysing

A digipak is a CD case, containing more than two panels and holding two or more CD's with information on the artists, its more of a 'special edition' CD case.

Rihanna Digipak Analysis

The Rihanna digipak cover, doesn't reveal much at all, in terms of identifying the genre. From looking at this we can't see if its pop, RnB, rock,

but then again most people know who Rihanna is and what she does which means she wouldn't have to reveal her genre.

The red roses suggest love, that anyone who doesn't know or listen to her would think she sings love songs, in which some of them she does. The red could've been done to match the colour of her hair on the album cover. The red hair also could suggest a fiery temper she has, but once the digipak is opened they see the flowers and change their opinion, and believe it could be suggesting love overall. The choice of images of her closing her eyes, suggest she's dreaming, dreaming of being in love maybe. In my opinion I think the whole layout is a good one, it fits in perfectly with everything based on it, such as the text, images, colouring, it all just works very well.

Oasis digipak analysis

Oasis digipak is a not so 'creative' one, it lacks a lot of colour, has a lot of text in a 'dull' font. The guitar on the front suggests a rock 'n' roll genre. I think however, the choice of imagery is clever and effective, it really explains the genre of who they are. The layout is effective, the same as Rihanna's, but not as exciting as her's. When looking at a CD cover, you want to be pulled into picking it up and seeing what it's like, whereas this doesn't grab you at all, it's quite dull and boring to be honest.

List of People Involved

Scott Razzell
Stephen Withey
Marcus Murdoch
Jack Porter
Jason (technical support)

Stephen and Tom will be appearing in the video.

Shooting Schedule

Session - Practice shots, practice lip syncing. 12th Sep
Session - Ensuring that locations are suitable. 15th Sep
Session - Begin filming the storyline. 23rd Sep
Session - Continue filing the storyline. 18th Oct
Session - Stock Footage 20th Oct
Session - Main filming session. 29th Oct
Session - Main filming session. 8th Nov
Session - Filming the final parts. 10th Nov
Session - Finalising 11th Nov

Locations List

We will be filming in a variety of different locations:

• Bus stop


• Long road


• House (dark represents the rock genre and mood of the video and character)


• Bedroom


• Small roads


• Scream Studios (Croydon)

Representations of People/Groups in Your Video

Construction of the Mise-En-Scene in Our Music Video

Mise-en-scene consists of everything on the set of a piece of media that is shown in the film, for example, costumes, setting, perfect lighting, key objects, equipment. All of these things contribute to mise-en-scene.

For our music video for Foo Fighters' 'Wheels' will be all the conventions of a rock music video...

• Dark setting such as an underground venue.
• Dark clothes
• Our artists performing, instruments included.
• Equipment such as guitars, bass, amplifiers, microphone stands and microphones.
• Stephen and Tom
• Dark lighting

All of these are going to be used as our 'mise-en-scene' in our music video, and will be a typical creative rock music video, showing all the conventions.

Copyright Permission Letter

Dear copyright holder,

We are A-Level students that are in the process of creating a music video, this letter is a request for permission to use a track by the Foo Fighters called 'Wheels'.

If you were to grant us permssion to use this track, we promise that it would only ever be used for educaitonal purposes, and the audience will be restricted to a minimum. This audience would only include our media studies teacher, media studies class and the OCR exam board moderator.

The artist and the company would be fully recognised throughout all stages of pre production and post production. A copyright notice with wording supplied by you can be included in the records of the project, if this is required please send full details.

We look forward to hearing from you soon,

Scott Razzell

Marcus Murdoch

Stephen Withey

Jack Porter