Blog Closed

We've finally completed our video, digipak, website and evaluation questions therefore my blog is now officially closed.

Evaluation question four: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We used a range of different media technologies during each stage whether it be for the media production,  the construction, research and planning or the evaluation stage.

Research and planning stage

During the research and planning stage of our media production, we used different types of technologies in order to achieve it. This included the internet as a big one in this stage. We used the internet to search elements of our music video. We did this by researching into indie band/singers music videos in order to get to know the conventions to follow or go against in our own production. This was done by using YouTube. We used this site because it holds all music videos from every music band/singer so this was the ideal site to use to find what we was looking for.

A2 Media students tend to upload their final videos to YouTube, this is very helpful to us during the research and planning stage. We were able to see what genres work well as an amateur production. From this we decided to choose an indie band as their music videos are normally narrative, something that is easier to portray than a club scene with the budget we have.

We also looked into websites of indie bands/singers such as Two Door Cinema Club and Kodaline. This helped us to build up an image of what needs to be included on our created website and what are good ideas. This was a good way that we used the internet in order to research into the indie genre in the terms of websites and music videos.

We gathered images of outfit ideas of what we wanted the main character within the music video to wear and shot ideas from other videos by using Google as a search engine. We also used this to find images of the locations we was planning on filming in which helped us create an image of what the music video is going to look like and gave us a plan of action.

We used our emailing system within school in order to ask the band, The Shape Of The Earth, for permission to use their song and create a music video for them. This was done so that we was allowed to use the song for our A2 Media Studies production.

Another media technology that we used is Adobe PowerPoint Presentation. We used this to create our initial group idea. This was chosen to present this because it was clear and easy to use and to show our idea to each other and our media group and teacher before beginning to produce it into a music video.

Prezzi was another media type we used to present many different things in research and planning. Examples of this was research into our each genre of music and our chosen genre, being indie.

During the research and planning stage of our of media production, we created a Facebook page. This was done in order for us to get audience feedback from a social networking site. This was chosen because it is the most popular social networking site and one that holds people of our target audience age and gender.

We had to do some research into digipaks before we created our own for the band The Shape Of The Earth. We did this by using the search engine Google again and was able to use images and other sites that link from that. This helped us to see what indie band/singer digipaks were like and to make sure we included some of the conventions in our own.

Album covers were something else that we used Google to search for. We looked at the albums The Shape Of The Earth already have using their band website. We did this in order to make sure we designed a digipak that would fit in with their image and the is the same type of what they already have. We also researched into other indie band/singer digipaks in order to get more of an idea about the conventions that need to be included to show this clearly to the viewers.

Blogger was something we used in order to track our progress and put every bit of research and planning onto in order to show the examiner. This was used for a personal blog to show the evidence of everything we have done throughout the year in terms of research and planning into creating our music video, website and digipak.

Construction

The camera was the most used part during the construction stage. We used one of our group members cameras instead of the schools due to the quality being better doing it this way. The camera we used was Fujifilm FinePix S2995 Digital Bridge Camera. We also used a tripod during the construction stage in order to make sure that we could do some steady shots that looked professional and have no bad shots for our music video.

We used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit and put together our music video. This was what we used for the whole video, in order to import the song, all of our clips and put them together with editing and transitions. This was another one of our main technologies that we used during the construction stage of our A2 Media Studies Production. We experienced some problems with this programme on the schools computer systems and we had to use last minute editing with a new version of Adobe Premiere Pro that was downloaded as a trail for us within school. This helped us with all of the editing we couldn't do with the older version and this meant we was able to complete our music video to the standard of which we wanted it at.

YouTube was used again in the construction stage as well as in the research and planning for audience feedback. We uploaded our rough cut and our final music video production onto the site to see what people thought in order to gain some audience feedback for ourselves and for the feedback for our blogs.

We used the sound booth  in order to record an argument between two people for the start of our music video. We had to arrange a time and date for this to happen in order to use the sound booth. We used two students from our year to play the role of the parents of the main character within our video from drama to act out an argument for us. We was able to piece this together and layer it on top of each other to create the right effect we was going for using a computer programme called Audacity. We was then able to convert this and save it into our school documents as audio to place into Adobe Premiere Pro and put into our music video.

Evaluation

We used Abode Premiere Pro during our evaluation stage in order to create a video and piece it together about our audience feedback. This was done for an evaluation question and included clips of us recording groups of people watching our music video. This also included the song other the top of the images and the audience's comments.

We had to use the school camera in order to film these groups of people watching our music video in order to receive feedback. We had to use this camera as the clips are easier to convert in this way, rather than using our own camera for the audience feedback video.


Our phones were another type of technology that we used during the evaluation stage of our media production. We used them to take pictures of the group using the equipment in order to place into this evaluation question. We was also able to film use opening up the digipak and emailing it across using the school emailing system to show it clearly to the audience more. This was done because it is hard to see what the digipak is like through images and thought that the examiner would like to see an explanation of how to open it up to show the idea we are trying to put across through it.

We also used the school emailing system in order to update the rest of the group and our media studies teacher about what is complete and what else we need to do. This was a fast and easy way of communicating with each other outside of lesson.


Blogger was something we used greatly during this stage of the production. This is because we had to look back at posts that we have made throughout the year to see what types of technology we used in creating our production during the stages of our music video. We also post our evaluation questions on our blog for the examiner to see, making it an important type of technology during this stage.

Evaluation question three: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After many problems with Adobe Premiere Pro, we finally finished our music video. However upon showing it to two groups of students and our media teacher we quickly realised it wasn't portraying the message we wanted. We took suggestions from both our teacher and fellow students, then re-edited the video to create our final piece.

The majority of the comments can be seen in the video above. The problems with showing your video to people you know is they may not give your honest feedback, this is why we decided to show it to a group of students that don’t know us. This is where we got our most honest feedback. Students stated ‘I didn't understand why the video changed from black to white’, ‘It seems to just be walking in a park’ and ‘boring in some parts’. We did receive some positive feedback too which reassured us what parts of the video worked well. We took the constructive criticism and changed the whole ending of the video. One comment made by our teacher was it was unclear that some of the handheld shots wasn't clear that it was intentionally meant to be shaky, because of this we created ‘typical’ camera features and put them over the video to make our intentions clearer.

Once we’d re-edited the video with the changes that our audience suggested, we showed to our teacher again. He said the message was a lot clearer, and you can see why the shots change from black and white to colour.

Evaluation question two: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

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

This is our nine frame picture we have created in order to show the different elements of our music video. We have used a lot of different music videos in order to create our indie genre clearer to the audience. This is in terms of the conventions used, shots and ideas that other videos have that we have developed upon and challenged in our own to Alone In This by The Shape Of The Earth.

The titles

Our opening shot on our music video is our title. This is the name of the song and the band that the song belongs to. We made the font white and the background black. This was done in order for the title shot to go with the first half of the music video, being black and white. We also created this in this way so that it links in with the title of the song, being Alone In This which is quite dark and depressing which goes with the black and white theme of the titles. On this shot, there is an argument that is muffled to show the storyline of the music video. This is another reason that we have made the title and the background of it black and white; to draw attention off the titles and on to the sound of the argument being played over the top.

A music video that we was inspired by for this title idea at the start of our video was Alone Together by Fall Out Boy. This has been done in this music video in order to set the story up to the audience, we have done it in our music video to give the opportunity to place the argument audio over the top and set the audience up for the storyline also.

Representation

For the representation of the storyline and the music video, we have chosen this still. This has been paused on a fade transition that was made in-between these two shots. We feel that this shows what we are trying to represent throughout the music video as it shows the difference in emotion at the two different points of the music video. It changes from the main character being unhappy and alone to being full of laughter and with friends. This is a clear representational point that the audience can see through the music video which has a large link with the song lyrics also. Emotion is the biggest aspect that we have focused on during the music video and what is being represented throughout. The main character is shown with a backpack in a major majority of the shots within the video. This is a representational point that we have focused on for the audience also as it shows that she is travelling. This is a main point of the music video and it the how transition from the start of the music video to the end. We feel this helps show the viewers the travelling aspect that is happening physically and metaphorically the transition in emotion she has travelled to and from during the process of the video.

The music video to Home by Gabrielle Aplin has a lot of representational shots within it. It shows the characters emotion really clearly through her face and her body language. This is something we have done as a group within our music video. Both songs really focus on emotion change through the song itself and the music video. We have used this from this video because it is also of the indie genre and has the same storyline, being the travelling of a character, of the music video.

Costume and props

A main prop that we used for part of the costuming of the main character was her backpack. This was used as a symbol to the audience of the fact that she is travelling and that is what is happening during the music video. We was able to show the change in seasons throughout the video with the costume of the main character. This was done by showing her in a coat during the first few shots of the music video and then show the change into a t-shirt. This shows the the weather has changed to the audience and it has gone from Winter to Spring and Summer clearly. The t-shirt we chose to be worn by the main character in the music video was blue. This was chosen because blue is bright and can help show the Summer season more. The colour blue also represents peace and an open flow of communication. These are two things we were trying to represent to the audience during the middle and end part of the music video. This is because it shows that the character finds peace during her travels rather than being at home and that she makes friends and is able to communicate freely and happily with them. The camcorder was another prop that was used in order to show the handheld shots were intentional to the audience of the music video. We have done these shots to show that the main character is capturing her happy memories and add more of an emphasis to these moments.

A music video we used a convention of in this way was Birdie - Shelter. We was able to re-create the walking scenes that we felt was something that worked well with our indie genre music video. This is because it can be done in a low budget location and shows the moment from a different perspective in this way.



Relationship between lyrics and video

Our whole music video is all based around the lyrics of the song. The majority of the shots within the music video show the main character being alone. This is something that links in perfectly with the lyrics of the song. All of the alone shots of the music video are at the start at the low points of the song. These are normally at points in the song that says 'am I alone in this?'. We have done these starting shots of being alone in black and white effect. This adds to the relation between the down points of the song and the emotion within the shots. The beat kicks in in the middle of the song and then throughout. This is when we change the shots and the atmosphere of the shots into bright and happy handheld camcorder ones. We have also changed the effect one these scenes to colour to show the transition of the emotion and the song clearer to the audience. During these high points of the song, the number of shots increase to go with the faster pace beat than the first part of the song and other characters are then introduced. This shows more is happening and show the main character is no longer alone.

A music video that this aspect relates to is Ride by Lana Del Rey. There are a few shots of her feet throughout the music video. This has been done in order to focus on the fact that the video and the song itself is about travelling and her journey. The video relates to the lyrics in the song through shots like this. This is something we have done by showing the main character being alone which related tightly to the lyrics in the song Alone In This by The Shape Of The Earth.

Story and how the opening sets it up

The opening of our music video really helps to show the relation the video has with the song and the lyrics within it. It also sets up the storyline to the audience. It starts off with an argument over the top of the title beginning scene. This helps to suggest the reason the character is so unhappy in the video and why she would start to go travelling. Another aspect the indicates the travelling point in the video at the beginning is the packing of her bags. This is a clear factor to the audience to show she is leaving and that is what the music video is going to be based around. This sets up the audience for the rest of the music video and what to expect. The opening shows clearer that the character is sad by having close-up shots of the characters emotion, being her face and hands for example.

A music video we got this shot idea from in order to set the storyline up properly to the audience so that it was clear was Wasted Words by The King Blues. The used a packing bags seen to show the audience what the rest of the video is going to be about. In this example, it shows that the character is leaving, in the same way these shots are being shown in our own music video.

Camera and editing

We have used editing for our music video to show a large aspect within it clearly to the audience. The handheld camera shots are what we had to edit and use effects to show that these shots were handheld camcorder shots to the audience. We did this by creating the frame around them, the battery life, the time runner at the bottom and the recording light at the top right-hand corner. We did this on Adobe Premiere Pro and we was able to make this look realistic and what was already on the shot itself. This is what we was aiming for in order to show this to the audience of our music video. We have used transitions throughout our video, being flashes to white. We have used this to go from handheld shots to normal shots. This is something we thought looked more effective and shows the different between the two different types of shots in the music video. This makes brake ups between them also. We used faded edits between some shots in order to show continuity of certain activities within the music video. An example of this are walking scenes of the main character.

We tried to do something different by doing this type of editing. This is something we have gone against in terms of the typical conventions of an indie genre music video. We felt this was different but worked well with what we was trying to achieve and show more clearly to the audience.

Genre and how the product suggests it

We have related our music video to the genre of song we are doing it to, being indie. We have done this by the locations in which we have filmed the video for example. A convention of an indie video is using low budget locations. This is something we have done by using the local area and places like that to show the storyline and the indie genre to the audience. Another convention that is used in many indie music videos is that the band or singer is never usually in it. This is something we have followed as a
conventions as we have a storyline and the band is not in it. We have focused on a character that has no star image to show the indie genre of the song and music video, as well as helping the audience to really focus on the storyline we have created and the link between that and the lyrics of the song.

A music video we have taken this convention from is All I want by Kodaline. They have filmed their shots in low budget areas also. This relates to our band that the song is by, being The Shape Of The Earth, as they are also an indie band. Using low budget locations that may be local is something that is done a lot in this video and in other indie music videos. We have taken this typical convention from this research into others of the same genre.

Characters/star image

The main character of our music video is not the band that the song is sung by. This is because of the indie genre and how the storyline is shown by a character rather than the band itself. The main character being shown is in the majority of the shots within the music video. This helps to indicate to the audience who is the main character and who the storyline is based around.

We have used ideas from the music video I Need Your Love by Calvin Harris. We have taken the shot idea of using handheld shots from this video. These shots are used all the time in this video. However, as we had a lower budget and Calvin Harris had a better quality, we had to create the battery life, the recording light and the frame around to show it clearer to the audience that it is what we are trying to achieve.                                                          

Setting/location

We have many shots within our music video our the set and location. We have done this in order to show the different stages of the main characters journey during her travels. This shows the audience the places she is in at each point of the music video. As the video is meant to show the characters journey over a period of time, shots of the location and the set help to show the audience clearly to changes in seasons throughout.

We have took inspiration for location shots within our music video from Noah by Amber Run. They are an indie band so the conventions of their video is something we have followed in terms of these shots. We felt this helped to set the scene and the location, show the indie genre and add more to our music video for the audience in terms of showing the location.

Digipak: Final

Below is the digipak that we have created for our 'Alone In This' music video and 'The Shape of The Earth' album. It features 9 frames;

§     The front

§     The back -song list

§     Lyrics page

§     Three photos of Sky (main character) taken from the video

§     Final picture of Sky alongside a message from the band to their fans

§     CD holder without CD

§     CD holder with CD

Finally, we have also included a spine which contains the album information such as the "The Shape Of The Earth - Alone In This". 

The front, the back and the spine

To the very left, is our front page. This is our album cover. Conventions of an album is to feature some sort of picture or image alongside with the artists name and song title. We had decided whilst we were filming to take some shots so that the music video and album cover will have a link between them. In the music video you see the main character - Sky, walking through a field, with her key props; the parka jacket and rucksack. She is facing front ways as it is the front of the CD, it’s the start of her journey, we have the front view of her, and it’s like the audience is ahead of her. The rucksack indicates she is travelling whilst the coat links with this as she has a big item of clothing to keep her warm throughout the cold seasons. The picture we decided to use was this one of her standing in the woods. This picture is very effective as the key element of this music video is her being physically and mentally alone, therefore the fact she is standing in the woods, alone, with nothing else but her rucksack shows that she is physically alone. Also, with the picture being in the woods this again, shows she is travelling as she is surrounded by nature instead of people, places and properties. Sky is wearing a dark washed out green parka coat which actually camouflages well with the forest and green scenery surrounding her. This almost works as a camouflage of her life. She feels invisible to everyone around her, almost as if she blends in with everything and no one sees her, she doesn't stand out from a crowd at too, she's barely even there. This links in a lot with the title that is placed just above her which says 'Alone In This', linking with the picture, album cover and then with the music video. In order to follow the theme of not standing out we made the white box that the title sits on slightly transparent so nothing is standing out, making sky completely level with the whole cover, there is no higher importance anywhere. Another reason for the white box was to link in with the beginning of the video which was all black and white to continue with the theme of being sad, lonely and life just overall being dull. A really important aspect that we have used in our digipak design is that any writing that we have used within our digipak has a specific colour, this colour is Sky’s coat. We have done this to ensure that everything has a meaning as well as linking to one another. The font colour is a dark green, the exact green of the coat that is hugely featured throughout the video.

Below I have inserted pictures of the front and back cover actually in the process of being taken using our Fujifilm Bridge Camera and tripod to do this.

Between the two frames above is the spine. This is just the strip at the side of the two that states the album name and artist name. We have continued with the same theme throughout the whole digipak therefore have used the forest background with the white box transparent over the top. It's simple yet still informative.

The last frame of this picture is the back of the album. This is the back page that includes a song list, this is a list of all of The Shape Of The Earth's song that are involved on this album, including Alone In This. On the back we have once again, followed the theme of the forest and the white box. The different between the front and the back cover is that Sky has gone from facing the front to us now viewing  the back of her like we are watching her go off and go on her journey to find happiness. The back cover contains a lot more information as this is the main element of this section of the digipak unlike the front cover where the picture was more of the main focus. We had decided to create a QR code to feature on our album alongside with a bar code. This adds to the realism of this digipak. The QR codes links to our website that we had created for 'The Shape Of The Earth’s music video for Alone In This. This code had been created using www.QRstuff.com which allowed us to create this free of charge. In order for this to work you simply take a picture using a smartphone which will then redirect you to our website. The bar code is what will be scanned when the album individually or the digipak is sold. In order to ensure that nothing on our digipak can be copied like the pictures, song names or designed we have had it copyrighted to ensure that this is now our property and it will be illegal for anyone to copy these. The last piece of information that we have used is linking our website and digipak together by stating it at the bottom 'www.theshapeoftheearth.weebly.com' this is so if anyone is interested they can visit the website.

Disk holder - with and without CD
The next two frames that I am going to talk about is the inside of the digipak; this is the disk holder and the CD itself. To the right of this picture is the disk holder, this is the plastic bit that the CD clicks into, to hold into place. For this we have used the tree picture to ensure that everything has a continuous theme running throughout it. We have faded the whole picture slightly out as this would be heavily covered in plastic therefore you wouldn't get a very clear image by this point. The grey shape that is layered over the top of the image is where the CD would fit and then the finger parts around it is what you would use to pull the CD out of its case. The actual CD is then to the left, this is the trees, so when the CD is in the holder it will look like one big picture. This picture isn’t the same as the first two pictures, instead it’s taken from a different scene of the music video, it’s still in the same location however Sky doesn't feature here. This indicates the inside of Sky, we have the front of her on the front cover and the back view on the back cover, therefore this part of the digipak in located right in the centre almost to work as the 'inside' of Sky, showing how empty she is, adding the idea of loneliness and being lost.

Lyrics page

To the left is our lyrics page. Alone In This is the main song of our digipak therefore we have included a page that feature the song’s lyrics for people to read through and learn if they wanted. This helps people to understand the words being said therefore the link between the video and the lyrics. Throughout our whole digipak we have used the images containing the background of the forest, this indicates Sky’s journey when travelling, on this page we have tried to follow the theme of linking our images with the video but wanted to differ from the original photos featuring the forest. Here we decided to use one of the more happier scenes in the video. In the video, the beat kicks in and this is when everything starts to get better, the scenes turn from dull black and white shots featuring council estates to pretty scenery including blossom and daffodils. The image we have chosen is the shot we have overlooking a stream being covered by a blossom tree. This shows that there is some happiness contrasting with the sadness and loneliness. Despite this difference, we have followed the theme by including the white box to once again tie everything together. We have also used the green colour matching Skys coat to ensure everything is continuous throughout the digipak. 

Outer images

To the left are the photos that are featured throughout the opening of the digipak, these are the first images that the reader will see when opening it up. These pictures are from the opening scene of the music video where Sky is in her room, in bed. She's lonely, and all she can hear is her parents arguing. You see her moving around the room and bed looking very restless and frustrated, looking very unaware of what to do. We thought it might be quite effective to get some good close up's of the star character. We chose these images for our digipak as we thought it was a good contrast against the dark dull colours of the forest, although all the images are representing the same message; loneliness.

Inner images

The last two frames are the ones from when things are starting to pick up, therefore the colour of the scenes look happier, healthier and brighter, containing a lot of colour and no coat, indicating the change in season. The left image shows that although Sky is with people, she does still feel alone so we mixed in shots of her alone and with people to represent feelings mentally. Sky feels mentally alone although she is physically far from it. The different with these scenes of her being alone is that although she still looks unhappy and lonely, it overall still looks quite happy as its better and brighter settings. The last image with in located to the right is the last image we have used. This is the 'star image' of the music video. This is one of the climax shots. This is when you see Sky looking truly happy and as though she is actually having fun, because of this we decided we definitely wanted to include this in our digipak due to its importance. We use this on one of the biggest build ups in the song. On this picture, we included a message from the band to their fans to make it quite personal, making the fans know they matter.

Above is our digipak, we have created and put together a small version to show how the digipak opens and works.

Email to The Shape of the Earth

In the reply from The Shape of the Earth giving us permission to use their song ‘Alone In This’, Gavin (TSOTE member) said they’d love to see our finished video. I've emailed them today with the links to our video and website for them to see.

Website: Final

Below you can see screenshots from our live website, click the link to be directed to the page:

http://07clarkl.wix.com/theshapeoftheearth

(HOMEPAGE)

(ABOUT US)

(UPCOMING GIGS)

(PHOTO GALLERY)

(VIDEOS)

(CONTACT US)

We followed the typical codes and conventions of an indie's bands website to create our final product. At first our homepage was just a picture with the album art with an iTunes link. When we showed this to our teacher he suggested to put some of the features from other pages onto the homepage in order to recreate the 'typical' band website. 

Video: Final

Editing: Handheld camera

Our rough cut features a lot of handheld shots. After we showed this to our media teacher he said it isn't that clear and sometimes looks like dodgy camera work. To avoid both the audience and examiner thinking this to we decided to add the typical camera features as an effect. However we quickly realised the editing programme we were using – Adobe Premiere Pro – doesn't have this features. Instead of just giving up we created our own. In the image you can see the finished version of the camera features over the video. I think this makes it obvious to the audience the camera is handheld.

Audience feedback: First look

We decided to show people who are similar to our target audience the rough cut of our music video. We recorded their reaction for our evaluation questions. At first we thought our rough cut was good enough to be our final piece. Upon viewing it again after hearing people’s views we have decided to make a few changes.

Here are some of the comments made:

§  The theme reflected the mood and lyrics

§  The video would have looked better in all black and white

§  It looked like a previous music video

§  Seemed like the character was just walking around

§  Very creative video which evoked a wide range of emotions in a short space of time

We took everybody’s comments into consideration and are planning to tweak the video before make it our final piece. Due to this we have had to film more shots to replace some of the scenery which has delayed the editing process once again.

Video: Rough cut

After facing so many issues with Adobe Premiere Pro we have finally finished our first version of ‘Alone In This’. We are planning to show this to our teacher to get feedback, along with sharing it with groups of people that fit our target audience but for now this is our video:

Meet the actress!

Name: Sky Croxford

Age:18

We had to change the actress in our video due scheduling conflicts. We have now chosen Sky to play the main character. Sky is a part of our media group therefore we all have the same free lessons in order to film making it a lot more convenient. She also has drama experience like the previous actress, she studied GCSE Drama so she’s used to taking direction. By having a group member as the actress has many benefits, the main being she can portray the image we are all imagining. 

Website: Choosing what site to use

We started to make our website on www.weebly.com; it allows you to create a free website with some basic functions.

After playing around with its features we realised it doesn’t have enough options to create the website design we would like. You couldn’t add any additional pages for free, this doesn’t follow the typical codes and conventions of an bands website. This is why we decided to change to another site to make our website.

The next website we tried out was www.yola.com; this was better than Weebly as you were able to create up to three additional pages but this still wasn’t enough. It was simple to navigate and add images making it really good for small independent bands.

Lastly we used www.wix.com; this is what we used to create our final website. It was more complex than the previous two websites we tried. It had lots of features considering it was a free website. I would recommend this to unsigned bands as they can put all the information they would need on a website.