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

There are a number of things that appeared in my audience feedback that I would like to talk about, some of these points are of things I felt I have done better, some along with the audience could have been improved.

Dan Biddle 02 March at 16:03
The setting is appropriate for a music video of this genre, the performers really put a lot of effort in.

This is some feedback a friend gave me, I believe the first half of the sentence can be interpreted to mean, that I achieved a preferred reading of my video. I intended for it to fit the rock/ metal genre and here is confirmation that I have managed this. The second part suggests that the performance was very good and that because of the effort put in by the individuals it made the video convincing. If they had just strummed the guitar, stood still and looked at the camera with blank expression, then yes they would have been playing the song, but it wouldn't have given me the desired effect or performance I wanted.

However another criticism was :
"the shots with the girl in the white dress in are hard to follow and difficult to understand i couldn't pick up on why she was there, other than to look hot"


This suggests that the reasons for her being in the video were unclear, they could have been established better at the begging. However it does also show that the audience did not establish the link between the songs lyrics and the girl. She was representing an aborted child as the song is about an abortion machine. This statement does state that they enjoyed the clips of the girl even with the lack of understanding as to why she was there. I would say from this criticism I have learned that even though it may not be clear why she is there it hasn't subtracted anything value from the video. As 'the male gaze', suggested by Laura Mulvey, makes up for the lack of understanding.




If we continue to look at the use of the girl in the music video, here we can see phoebe saying she found the use appropriate and that it fitted in the conventions of our genre. She also says that having this section of narrative improved the video.

However, Phoebe also gave some constructive criticism for improvement. As you can see from the screen shot, she suggested that I could have used more close ups of the band, and use of different angles. These are valid points and things that I should have thought about much more, especially as close ups are much more prevalent in my animated storyboard. This suggests that my organisation and planning of filming days including shot lists were not as well planned as I had thought.
I can see the need also for use of a more diverse range of angles, however potentially I think there could be a danger of using too many angled shots. Having said that, at moments in the video such as 22 seconds in, there could have been better use of angles.

In terms of feedback about my digi pak and magazine advert, everyone has said that they look professional and suit the genre really well. However a few have said they lack coherence, as the magazine advert is black and white, but the digi pak has dull, faded colours. This suggests to me that the initial research I did into my audience was correct as what I have produced fits the genre and looks professional, however I should have considered the importance of house style more.

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Coursework question 2

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

The music video had a degree of redundancy so that the target audience could relate to it and meant I was just using conventions that were already prominent within the industry. However to keep it original I had degrees of entropy within it as well, which were challenging the conventions many are used to. The main way in which I achieved this was through the performance of the girl. The song being about an abortion machine, she is portraying an aborted baby. The link however is not easy to establish so it gives off this entropic vibe throughout the video, it also achieves a certain amount of originality as I have not tried to make the link obvious but very subtle.

Steve Neale - talks of repetition and difference. I aimed to make a video that was very stereotypical of the genre. This involved lots of shots of the band performing. This is merely repeating what has been done by many bands before.
The difference came with the effects I used, in attempting to be original I reversed shots of the guitarist jumping from his amplifier. Then in the narrative section with the girl, this wasn't different as a lot of videos have performance narratives, it was how I filmed her. I rarely showed her at a straight angle, it was almost always at a canted or high/low angle. I also used fast pace editing, when there is a shot of her, the clip is very shot. However I do in places show a Clip of her every other cut, so there was some sort of narrative progression.

Magazines such as Kerrang! and Metal Hammer were constantly giving me new inspiration as to what I could achieve. In my video and print work. These are obviously aimed at the genre (rock/metal) I have aimed my coursework towards. They influenced me in terms of the props and colour schemes that I used. For instance the Top hat, playing card and cigarette in my magazine advert. I got the idea to use this as an advert from reading an article in Kerrang! where they interviewed Slash. Using this intertextuality I managed to create something original.


This is an advert that helped me to develop the music video I took a lot of inspiration from it as it has conventions that relate well to our genre. The advert having a strong horror theme, which is illustrated by the low lighting, location, pan shots, extreme close ups to name a few. It gave me inspiration on how to portray the girl in our film how to video her, and what she should be dressed in. It also inspired our shots of the natural environment, as the trees in this advert are shown very dark and eerie. The location was going to be very similar but had to be changed at the last minute.

Inspiration came from watching other music videos within the genre we were involved with. Seeing what the mise en scene of the video was, the locations they used and themes of the videos. We also tried listening to the song and using synaesthesia to devise a concept, by placing ideas into moodboards. This meant Auteur theory was prevalent in our work and that we weren't only re-arranging other people’s ideas to make them seem fresh and original.






These are a few of the bands that I modelled the bands image on. You can see that the style of clothing and contrast of the actual image are quiet similar. If we compare this to the photos I used of the band we can see repetition and difference as Steve Neale suggests.
In all the photos the whole band are shown, which is the same in mine. They all have edgy stance/ attitude and in my photo I have replicated this. The lighting in all of the photos is photoshoped. I felt that I also needed to alter the contrast of my photograph as it made the photo powerful with the colour effect and made the band appear more aesthetic. I believe that I took most influence from the first two images as the badns are looking anger, powerful, demanding. However I believe I was challenging the bottom image as in the photo the band look very emotional the front three members are not looking at the camera but seem to be expressing sadness, and the music that AlterVertigo play goes against this convention even thought they are in the same genre.




However this can be seen in the promotional package as well as the music. In the magazine advert there are connotations of death, coldness, bleakness. These are achieve by the black and white filter, and the frosted grass. There are also connotation of pure rock and roll, achieved by the traditional top hat cigarette and playing card. However there is also amidst the connotations of death etc a hope in the ace of spades positioned in the top hat, traditionally associated with good luck and a winning card.

In the digi pak all the members look very serious, the images are dull, there is no striking colour. There is a sombre image of a dead tree with a frosted over lake that connotes death, coldness and bleakness once again. The connotations in both axillary tasks are very similar.

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

Josh Gill - College Work from Ben Burnett on Vimeo.

This is a video of me answering the evaluation question. I also used an iPhone 4 to film and edit this video, and so a media technology I didn't mention that helped assist me in my evaluation stages was the iPhone 4 as it let me easily film, edit and upload to the internet a video presentation.

Finished music video

Editing the music video

Editing the music video, I have taken a big role in deciding what clips we as a group use down to the second for instance how the long clip lasts, a good example of this is at ....... where there are 5 different bit of footage that are very short and appear to flash then vanish. This fits the pace of the song perfectly. Another area of the film that i have taken great interest in is the duration of clips, I have experimented with speeding up certain shots and slowing down others, as I found this increased the impact they had if used correctly. I have however just generally been a big role in the editing and spent a lot of time cropping footage to size and placing it in the time bar, and also editing the contrast, brightness and equalisation of clips with Bonnie.

Filming for the music video

In terms of filming, I had to re-organise the location as Croome Court staff were un-helpful in terms of communication as to when we could and could not film. However when I had re organised the filming location of the band, I did most the filming as certain members of the group failed to turn up on time. I filmed almost all of the shots of the band minus a pan shot of them all, certain close ups of the drummer, and a shot of the guitarist and bass player. I also filmed almost all of the close ups of the singer, apart from a few which I made sure other members did, for fear of doing too much filming myself, and I filmed none of the shots of the dead girl as I had made sure this was left up to another individual in the group.

1 week to go: music video progress

Music Video - Edited so far

MUSIC VIDEO progress so far.

Animatic storyboard

This is my groups very rough animatic storyboard.

The finished Digi Pak

This is the final version of my digi pak :)

Finished Magazine advert

This is my finished magazine advert

Digi Pak progress

After deciding my digi pak wasn't conforming to the same ideas and themes as the video and advert I have changed some of the images etc and this is how its coming along.

Magazine advert so far...

This is my advert I believe it follows the conventions that will be used in our magazine and there fore is an effective advert for my band.

Casting

The group have found all the members for the band and the living dead girl, we think they will be suitable and fit the parts extremely well. The band are comprised of real musicians that actually play the instruments they will be using in the video and have also played in bands in the past or are currently. We know that coming from bands they will understand the dynamics well and this will help give the video a look of authenticity as we can't use the real band. Kieran Curtis on bass guitar, Alex Moore on Guitar and vocals, Dan Biddle on Guitar, and Giorgio Manganiello on Drums. The living dead girl will be played by Bonnie Brinkworth a member of our group, the role is not extensive and we think she was best suited for the role. Taking these things into consideration we gave her the part. in terms of mise on scene of the video, the band will be dressed as hard rock musicians. This will involve band t shirts, leather jackets, bandannas, and boots. The living dead girl will wear some sort of gothic style dress.

digi pak continued

Since the last blog of my digi pak, it has came on a lot I now have 6 sides and much better quality photos. I have also used editing tools to effect the text so it stands out much more than previously.-

Mood board

This is the mood board for the song numbers by Altervertigo,as a group we used synaesthesia to define what we thought should be in the video and then confirmed with a target audience that these images were ok and that we weren't missing anything important.

Audience profile

This shows what we believe the audience would associate with the music, it includes their interests and hobbies. The audience would be defined as hedonists and individuals as they go against certain aspects of society. This would include the way they dress as it is not the 'in' trend. They would go to a number of gigs within the year and go out at the weekend to drink with mates, but at bars instead of clubs like other teens.
On the Jicnar scale they would be considered C1 - D and between the ages of 16 - 19.
Other music they would listen to would include Bullet for my Valentine, Metallica and Avenged Severnfold.

The Presentation

The pitch presentation

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This was our pitch that we presentented to the class I also showed it to some of the actors we will be using in the video who were impressed by it. The main criticism was generating power as the majority of it will be done at a stately home and to make sure the use of the dead girl is not comical, but apart from this everything was ok.

Technology week

Within the week my skills developed as I experimented, with the filming aspects as I got used to the new cameras, but also in terms of editing as I learnt to use after effects and the advantages it holds. After effects helps you achieve creative things that you wouldn't be able to without the technological skills. It was important that I learnt how to use this well so it wouldn't hinder my creativity, and that was my main motivation for learning these skills. I want to produce the best work I can so need to understand how to use the technology to achieve this.

The relationship between skills and creativity could be argued to be that you are creative and come up with an idea, then learn the skills to achieve this. Or in learning the skills and having the technical ability you become creative and come up with ideas. I believe it is a mix between the two and that the relationship is constantly changing as you learn new skills and are inspired creatively.

3 targets for this week

1, To use the new college cameras and familiarise myself with them and all the settings to gain the maximum that they are capable of. This I know will benefit my production hugely, as if we get it right first time we wont waste time re - shooting etc.

2,To learn how to use Adobe after effects, as it will help to make the video more dramatic, in the sense that we want the film to feel erry and this could be made more pronounced using after effects.

3, to learn to use lighting equipment as it will definitely be needed in our production and I have no experience of using it before.

Digi pak first draft

This is a first draft of my digi pak the final with have more sides and be more challenging in terms of effects and technology, such as using drop shadow and outterglow to lettering to make the name of the band more pronounced. Also making better use of the camera, taking better photos and editing them more effectively. I think it was a good idea to do this test run as it has highlighted certain things that need to be addressed such as finding a striking image for the front. However I feel the image used on the back and the effect used on it work well and will be kept.

Creativity week

This weeks theme has been creativity, and to experiment trying things and not being scared to be wrong, as Sir Ken Robinson said “if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.” My group and I drew an animatic storyboard and have started to imput that into Adobe Premier pro, I also have created a mock up digi pak in my spare time. Mr Robinson also said that we are all born creative and that we grow out of it as we go through education, because education favours academics and not creativeness. This week my group has tried to merge the two, being creative to achieve what we need on an academic level. The way I understand creativity, is that you can't just turn it on and off, its something sporadic that comes to you when you are inspired. This meant when we were working as a group we would feed off each other saying things ansd suggesting ideas. When we became stuck and didn't know what to do we would play the song again, we found this would release fresh ideas.

Video Reasearch - Dr feel good, Motley Crue

This Video is quiet a redundant video of a rock band preforming their song, however it has entropic elements to it. For instance at the start of the song there is an establishing shot that shows us the band are preforming their song in a big top tent in the middle of the desert. This connotes a sense of seclusion and loneliness but at the same time the band are singing about feeling good.

When the camera goes inside the tent, everything is on fire and shot fades and cross dissolves all focus on this. This could suggest that the band are dangerous, reckless or the burning sensation felt when the band need to 'feel good'. The mise en scene becomes hugely important once inside the tent, as they are shown on top of cars that appear to have crashed and surrounded by ruined buildings. It connotes a feeling of a post apocalyptic world. Aspects like this amplify the star image in the video as we see them throughout having a 'good time' as the song is glorifying.







The use of camera shots in the video has a wide range from close ups of the singer too track shots and steady cam shots. When there is a jump in the song, for instance from the chorus to verse the cut is really quick as if it jumps, this works as the rest of the editing isn't particularly quick. The editing is fairly slow but the camera follows the singer so the video doesn't drag, there aren't many cuts but as the singer walks around we see different band members playing in the background. A good example of this is at the beginning of the guitar solo the camera pulls away from the singer and starts to spin almost as if effected by the guitar then stops to focus on the guitarist, this is all one cut but is very effective.

Plan for Time management

To make sure deadlines are met and the use of time is efficient I have created a calender of things to do before the end of term so that the music video will be ready to shoot when I return to college and so that my digi pak and poster will be completed.

Abortion girl clarification

After We presented our pitch to the class the feed back we recieved suggested we needed to clarify with each other in the group about how we present and portray the Aborted girl/child. We aim for the actor to preferably fit in with the mise en scene of the top three girls, but the other images are also possibilities.

Research into Digipaks

Digipaks are a way of packaging a cd they have multiple cardboard sides with images and genre related items to do with the band or artist, including lyrics. They are generally used as special edition casing of albums such as greatest hits where they can be more than one disc.

Analysis of a music video

Lostprophets - Last Train Home.
The narrative of this video is centred around repetition. Except every time it repeats a certain amount of years has passed, starting in the present day but as the window cleaner cleans the window there is a cut in the film and it changes to him in 1974 doing the same job but younger. The editing at this moment is seamless the only reason you notice it to start with is because a sepia filter is used to film the 1974 era part of the video and the window cleaner has changed clothes and became younger.
The ideology we could relate to the narrative would be restricted narrative because the video revolves around the singer and we only see what he see's. As the singer drives around he starts to notice things that later in the video change and become dated to the new time frame, for instance the skateboarders, this brings a sense of it feeling more real. The song being called last summer shows how even though the years go by the things teenagers do don't change and that its just the clothing that changes and skateboards get updated. This structure helps the audience which would mainly be 14 - 17 year old boys relate with the video and as at the time of its release skateboarding was huge with this age group. In this video shop keepers are represented as being kill joys that are always after you even if your not causing trouble, but the youth are portrayed as young and in love, just trying to have a good time doing what they enjoy no matter what period of time they are in 74, 85, 04. They show teenagers don't change for instance when you see the leavers banner there is toilet roll thrown into the air, and a couple outside the school kissing. These connote that at least the basic things of life will always stay the same. At the end we see the window cleaning guy through out all 3 of the time periods, he changes as he throws newspaper into the bin, this I feel is an appropriate ending seen and summarises what the whole music video has been about, that things may change in appearance but will always carry on as they have.

Spike Jonze

Best known for producing, directing and writing films, short films, music videos, and work in the magazine industry. Directed Fat boy slim's weapons of choice and praise you, Beastie boys sabotage.
He was in talks to direct Star wars 2 Attack of the Clones but then George Lucas decided to make it himself.

He has also been a skateboarder, stunt man and had some minor roles in films, he helped launch Weezer into the mainstream for directing their music video for 'Buddy Holly'
He was the Creator, producer, and executive producer, of Jackass, and also produced Jackass the movie which he even acted in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM1fkHQP_Pw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPT7q825gwI

Auteur theory - Spike Jones clearly choose a style of Directing and producing that includes a vast amount of comedy, for instance the music video for WAX California can be seen as very Jackass like.In the sense that it is something you would see on Jackass as it is a man on fire running. This is of course also highly entropic as this man is running to catch the bus and it doesn't seem to bother him that he is on fire. So we can see that although t.v. and music are to different mediums Spike merges them together.
In the video for Weezer- Buddy Holly Spike has superimposed the band into the tv show Happy Days which is impressive from a technical aspect.
Weapon of choice by fat boy slim brings up Christopher Walken dancing in an empty hotel this is highly unexpected as at the start of the video he is sat down looking very serious and concentrated. These two things combined the beginning with him looking so serious and then the dancing bring a certain comedic element and also a sense of entropy as it is unexpected and something that Christopher Walken would never usually do, but you would expect comedy from Spike Jones as it is his auteur style.

Andrew Goodwin

Is a music video theorist his theory is that there are 5 elements to a music video, these include.
Thought beats - this means that you can see the song in your head, it is like a story and the band or the singer is the story teller. Goodwin says that a music video creates these two devices that compliment each other, but that it is two way as they both tell us the story and we have to listen.

Narrative and performance - Goodwin says that music videos should ignore the normal narratives and that performance and narrative go hand in hand, that it is easier for the viewer to have both.

The star image - Is important to making the video believable to the viewer.

Relation of visuals to song - Most commonly used are images that relate in some way to the lyrics of the song or the genre the band or artist belongs to. Another technique is called Disjuncture and is the complete opposite to illustrating the lyrics, the meaning of the song and the music video are complete opposites and the songs meaning is ignored by the video.

Technical aspects of the music video are also important as they keep the film together and running smoothly.

We will now analyse a music video using his theory to analyse the music video my hero by Foo Fighters

Black and White influence for my coursework

I have also been watching black and white or largely black and white music videos and they seem very effective, there is a certain element of mystery to them.

The First being The Police Every breath you take the use of black and white in this song fits it perfectly and intensifies the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOGaugKpzs


The second being U2 with or without you is mainly black and white, but when they do use colour it is still very dark and only coloured slightly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmSdTa9kaiQ&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh+div-1r-2-HM

My Chemical Romance I don't love you also is in black and white and is very effective as the story within the film relies on it being black and white. It connotes the contrast of the characters and a simplicity that your either one or the other, in this case that being pure or dirty. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO9Lj0T93Xk

Andy Warhol and Pop art

Andy Warhol is famous is famous for his pop art masterpieces a well known piece is of Marilyn Monroe, I feel that the music video I create could be inspired by his art, just as The Who were inspired by pop art. Whether it is shooting in negative or other entropic ideas I think if I use the right artist the use of pop art could be very effective. Andy Warhols favourite method of print was silkscreen and creates a psychedelic effect a music video could be filmed entirely in this.

Research into adverts

Research into Digipaks

All American Rejects and Post secret link...inspiration

In this video they use images from post secret which are postcards which people have used to decorate and tell secrets these are then published in books. Through out the video we see images of people holding them. I think this is a really good concept, to mix art with music, and possibly something I could do

Link to post secret - http://www.postsecret.com/

Narrative theories

Avenge sevenfold Nightmare

potentially could make a video similar to this. I believe this is something achievable with the resources I have to hand.

My Prezi on redundancy and Entropy

Video Skills Audit

Storyboarding - To get better at this I must start to consider Mise en scene, camera angles and Filling the frame as well as all the other things to make the storyboard as detailed as possible so that I know exactly what is happening and when so that when filming no time will be wasted.

Actors, Performers and models. - I need to clearly tell them what I want from them, the kind of performance I want them to give and how to act out the scene. Discuss this with them and make sure they understand fully what I mean.

Reconnaissance - I need to clearly find locations, to go out and find them for myself and not just think of ideal spots To take into consideration any disturbances that may occur in that location. To think of implications of health and safety and check it in great detail.

our busted video

My Prezi explaining my thoughts on the production of the busted video, what I learnt, what I felt went well and what could have been done better.

What did I learn about lip synching

Preparing and planning

To prepare I watched the youtube video, to see what emotion Bon Jovi put into the different lines of their song. I also had to learn the lyrics to the song, so that when preforming to the camera I would not have to read them and giving an all round better performance.

Filming

I took two takes to shoot my part in the film, as I got the timing wrong to the opening lyrics "once upon a time, not so long ago." Joe, however took one, the idea was simple in that we were filmed separately and then cut them together later to make the film more entertaining.

Working with performers

This experience will help me understand what the performers in my final video will be going through and how they will be feeling in performing to a camera, so it has given me empathy and the ability to talk them through. Also I will look at how i present them with the performance I want from them.

Technology

I used a camcorder to shoot the performance and Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 editing software to produce the film captured. It helped in a number of ways as we would not be able to achieve the quality of production without Adobe, as it is simple to use and effective in final product.