Friday, 30 April 2010
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Friday, 26 March 2010
Evaluation
Caroline: My music video uses aspects of different music videos from the same genre. To make our music video seem as realistic as possibly we decided to refer to some existing music videos from the same/similar genres to our song. We used and investigated aspects of these videos and how we could adapt ideas in order to use, develop and challenge the different forms and convention within these media products to produce the best possible product ourselves. Below are some videos we studied for ideas.
The Fray – You Found Me
▶What we liked about this video is mainly the use of many different locations, which aren’t usual places for a band to be playing or singing. We also liked the use of lighting in the video however we thought for our video we would rather use natural lighting for most of it and only if the lighting is too dark we will use lights of our own.
The Spice Girls – Two Become One
▶What we liked about this video is when the cars are going faster than the people are. We were thinking about using this in our video to convey the meaning that the world is moving too fast for the character to keep up. This fits with the meaning of the song which is that the singer isn’t happy where he is in life.
The Kooks – Ooh La
▶What we liked about this video was the appearance of the video, the fact that the video was made up of black and white and old fashioned camera effects. I decided to mimic this in my video, because the meaning of the song, is that the singer feels as if he is not where he wants to be in life, and feels out of place, therefore using the black and white/ old fashioned camera effects, compliment the meaning of the song, by also being slightly out of place compared to what you would expect from a song made in this day and age.
2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
▶Fast/Slow Sequence
▶Britney Video
▶Feed the fish Sequence
▶‘PowerPoint’ timeline of Pop music.
These are the four things that we learnt that stuck out for us whilst filming and editing the Britney and fast/slow sequences.
While filming the Britney video we learnt that to get all the shots we needed of every angle of the same actions, we needed more than one camera rolling at the same time so all of our shots would fit together. Also we had some problems with continuity so we learned to make sure people were in the same places wearing the same clothing and makeup, etc all the time.
Whilst filming for our fast and slow sequence we realized that you have enough footage but, as we found out, you will rarely ever have enough footage and will quite often need to film more than once. With lighting, you will most likely need to bring your own just in case the lighting isn’t adequate within each location, or the lighting changes due to what time of day you are filming, especially if it was different to the first time you filmed in that particular location.
3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?
▶Jenna:
I showed my class my edited video to receive some feedback on what they thought worked well and also to receive some constructive feedback on what I could’ve improved. Through doing this I found that people liked the shot angles and movements; black and white effect; the slow zooms; they thought that the end shot made them reflect on the video and the lyrics. They believed the mise en scene worked well which included the equalizer top, and the train locations and playground setting worked very well in symbolising the fact that he feels his life is at a stand still. They stated that the actions in the filming went well with the lyrics of the song. The train motif and the shots of him walking away in the park worked well in showing his life is going in another direction but he doesn’t know where.
They however thought that the old fashioned effect didn’t work very well and the effects were also inconsistent. They believed that even though the song is very slow, the editing could’ve been a bit faster paced to make it seem more like a music video. The artist was unbelievable and also the audience would’ve liked to see him playing guitar and singing more often in the shots where he is sat in the room. The audience didn’t understand why the colour shots of the equalizer was in there and they said that the camerawork was shaky at times. Also some shots were repeated too often. I will take all of this constructive feedback and use it in my future work.
▶Caroline:
I showed my video to 10 people in order to find out what my potential taret audience thought or my video, what worked, didn't work and how i could improve my video if i ever got the chance to.
I discovered that my audienced liked the shot angles and camera movements within my video such as the slow zooms, the black and white effects and the colour changing effects throughout the video, mainly the playground scenes. They felt that certain shots made them reflect on the entire video aswel as the meaning behind the song and the meaning portrayed throughout the lyrics. Many commented on the representation that we were trying to put across to the audience and the different ways in which some shots made them interpret the video and the way that our main character is supposed to be portrayed as being stuck in a stand still in life. They commented on how the shots of him in the park on the roundabout sybolise how his life is going in circles and how he is stuck in this situation not knowing how to get out. Also how the train goes past whilst he is at a stand still show that his life, at the current time is not going anywhere. This is also portrayed by the way he walks continuously next to the river and through the fields, he is not seen to actually reach anywhere, he just seems to be walking aimlessely in one direction. Some commented on how they thought that the train motif worked well with the diegesis of the song aswel as the shots of him walking through the fields symolising the fact that he doesnt know where his life is taking him, that it is taking him in new directions but he does not know where or why.However they thought some aspects could be improved on. For example, some commented on how some of the editing could have been faster paced, even though the song itself is a fairly slow song, to make it more realistic as a music video. They also commented on how some of the effects seemed a bit inconsistent throughout the video. They thought that the video needed more shots of our character singing and/or playing an instrument, especially the guitar shown in some shots, however many viewers did understand the relevence of the guitar being broken next to him as he was singing, to represent aspects of his life not working or being 'broken'. They said at times the singer was singing to slow for the pace of the song, so some of the lip-synching was slightly out of sync with the music. Some commented that occasionally they noticed that the camerawork was slightly shaky but it wasnt incredibly noticeable when watching the video whilst not looking for faults.
Below is an example of one viewers comments after watching the video.
Yaiden-
liked the Colour changing effect in park
liked the train
liked him walking away from the camera
Didn’t like the ‘studio’ type scene, out of sync.
Costumes fit in well with the genre of the song.
Split screen at the beginning was a good introduction to the narrative. Liked the colourful editing effects.
4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
▶Digital cameras
▶Digital video cameras
▶Mac computers
▶Online research
▶Computer based planning
▶Typed evaluation
▶Music player
▶Youtube
▶Facebook for pictures
▶Myspace
▶Online blog (blogger.com/blogspot.com)
Within the research stage we used online research using search engines, youtube to refer to music videos from the same genre aswel as their profiles. We used Myspace in the same way. Most of this was done on mac computers. We used Microsoft Word to type up our notes on each video and different points from their profiles. I used digital cameras to take photos of possible locations and costumes. I used Digital video cameras to film all the footage for my video. We used mac computers to edit both of our videos using Imovie. I uploaded our song to our myspace page using the music player, aswel as the logos which i designed using programs such as 2D design. I also used online editing software such as photofunia.com and picnik.com to design the logos and digipak. I downloaded some of our character photos from our characters facebook profile. I created a myspace profile for our band, with their history and information about them aswel as uploading the pictures to the profile. We have both typed parts of our evaluation and information on our blog.
Caroline logging off
