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

Evaluation 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Our audience feedback throughout the course of creating the music video and ancillary tasks became very useful to us by helping in our decision making and determining what actually looked best in the final products. During our audience feedback we wanted to make sure we received it from the correct demographic of people as this was going to be most of our audience therefore being the most influential people.

Nearer to the start of the project when we were doing audience research we used ‘Survey Monkey’ which allowed us to post a survey online and receive feedback from people who gave their age and then their opinion on certain things, there are examples below. This allowed us to gain feedback from the public and let us know if the video gets across the message that we were going for. For example, we asked ‘What genre would you relate to our band name Rogues Gallery’ and the majority chose Indie Rock therefore let us know that we were following the correct conventions to fall into the Indie rock genre. Also to complement this we posted a 1^st draft of our music video on YouTube whilst posting the link on twitter and Facebook, this allowed us to see the comments and reactions of which we took in to consideration to make our music video better as a whole.

Another way of receiving audience feedback was screening our music video to a room mostly full of our demographic audience with some other demographics as well which allowed us to see different points of views. This was very advantageous as we received feedback sheets from the audience with positive and negative aspects of the video they had written down therefore letting us know what is successful about the video and what is unsuccessful. Constructive criticism is very important because it allows for us to change things that do not look as good therefore making the product much better. However, some of the audience may be reluctant to give criticism because they think it may offend us however you can argue criticism is more important than the praise.

The general feedback we received from these screening was that the audience enjoyed that we had a longer narrative of which is unusual for an Indie rock band to do as the music videos are usually performance based. Therefore, we challenged this convention which came out to be successful move as it allowed us to be more creative and improve the music video as a whole. Also a lot of the audience commented on the performance as even though we had a long narrative we also had a strong performance which came together nicely making the video interesting and it allows the audience to stay engaged for a longer period of time. Also it was commented that the performance in our music video linked with our genre very well making sure that the audience knew what genre of music was being played by just watching the video.  Other parts of the video which were prompted by the Indie rock genre was our choice to edit the music video in black and white which had good feedback as it gave the music video a dark feel to it. This also linked in with the narrative of our music video as the black and white went really well with in the fighting scenes as again gave it a dark feel.  There are examples of the feedback sheets below and as you can infer that there are ‘elements that work’ and ‘elements that need developing’ this allowed us to keep what parts were successful and let us know which parts to develop and improve. However, we did receive constructive criticism which was that some shots in the fighting scene was too dark and you wasn’t able to see the image correctly. This was because of the lighting as it was late in the day due to a long shoot however we was able to correct this in post-production in the editing stage as we used the colour corrector and brought up the white and took the down the blacks a little.

Evaluation 2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

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

When in the process of creating the ideas for the main task and ancillary texts I knew I wanted there to be a clear link between the music video, digipak and poster. I did this by making sure I kept key themes throughout the products such as the black and white images and the use of the same fonts. I believe that this is important because if I put all three products next to each other it is clear for the audience to notice for example if a person sees a poster of the band and recognise the colour scheme and then see the CD in store with the same colour scheme and fonts then they would instantly identify it.

The thought process behind creating my ideas came down to the research I done about the genre of Indie Rock. Looking at the Indie Rock genre I found that the theme and the conventions are quite dark compared to others genres such as Pop therefore I decided to use a black and white theme throughout my products which was inspired by bands such as Kasabian and Arctic Monkeys who use black and white images frequently. Also when we were thinking of the brief for our band we decided to make the band from London therefore I decided to make this clear throughout my products by including images of the band at recognisable locations and landmarks throughout London. Also from the research that I conducted about indie rock bands I found that throughout their images and photo shoots the band members are usually standing in the same positions. Therefore, when we travelled to London to take the photograph I made sure we were always in the same order. Also it is important that the lead singer is in the middle of the photograph as the lead singer is usually the face of the band as there are many close-ups of him.

Regarding the links between my digipak and my advert poster I have chosen to use the exact same colour scheme which I created in Photoshop using the black and white tool by of which I took down the yellow and put up the blues. Also I have chosen to be wearing the same clothing throughout all of my pieces of text to make sure the audience recognise the band members. It is important to do this as the band image will be one of the selling points as it will stick in the consumers mind even if they don’t realise it which links to the hypodermic needle theory. The font I chose to use throughout my products was found using www.dafont.com, I chose this specific font due to my research into other Indie Rock bands such as Oasis and Arctic Monkeys who use serif fonts. Using the same font and font colour throughout the texts creates and strong link between them making it easier for the audience to recognise they are connected. I chose to use the colour red for all my fonts because it gives off a good effect against the black and white images. Also red connotes violence which is shown in our music video therefore a smaller link between the two.

For my digipak, I wanted a clear link between all panels and a link with the poster. The CD’s themselves are images of iconic landmarks in London Big Ben and London Eye this again shows the bands origin which links with the first panel of the band facing Tower Bridge. Also I made the Cd’s into black and white to link with the rest of the panels including the front panel with us in the studio as without the black and white there wouldn’t be a link. The black and white aspect is very important for me as I have sued it in all of my texts including the music video therefore being the strongest link between them all. I wanted to be unique and try something different on the inside panel to show that I wanted to develop a panel further. I did this by using an image from the photo-shoot in London and placing a code on the front. This panel is a raffle panel of which you have to enter the code online to see if you win backstage tickets to see the band perform. This will keep the fans engaged with the band and make them feel closer this is a clever way to keep and gain fans as it gives them a chance to meet their idols. Another link throughout my ancillary texts are the photo shoots that we completed we wanted the band to be in a natural positions for example just walking which is shown on my poster or looking at a view of Tower Bridge which is shown on the digipak. This is a regular convention of indie rock bands such as Oasis’s album ‘definitely maybe’. It is pop stars that are usually posing for the camera therefore it is more of an Indie Rock attitude to go against the usual hegemonic values in society and be disobedient.

Overall, there is a clear link between my main product and my ancillary tasks as I have made sure there are clear relationships by following themes such as using images of London, using a black and white colour scheme and keeping to the same appearance. The relationship between them all is an important aspect as said before the audience should know if they see a poster they could easily spot the album in a store.  

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

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

When creating a music video it is important that you recognise that depending on your genre of music there are different codes and conventions and it is up to the creators to either follow, develop or challenge them.  As a group we decided to use an Indie Rock song as we came to an agreement that when looking at us as a group we look more like an Indie Rock band than a rap group. Once we found a song that we all liked Kasabian’s Club Foot I started to research many Indie rock bands including Arctic Monkeys, the Kooks, Oasis and Kasabian. From this I found that Indie rock band Music videos are very performance based and even though some music videos had a small narrative the core of the music video was the band performance therefore we felt that we had to include this in our music video. The performance scene in our music video also followed codes and conventions as nearly all the music videos I researched such as the Kasabian Club Foot music video had a main singer which was the main focus in the performance scene as there were many close ups of him. Therefore, we wanted to follow this convention of the Indie rock genre as we felt it was important that we make sure the audience knows what genre codes and convention we are following.

As mentioned before the main convention that we followed was the performance within the music video however as a group we did decide to follow more. When researching I noticed that a lot of music videos were edited into black and white which are connotations of the Indie Rock genre as it gives a dark feel to the video which complements our video as there it features violence. Also all the band in our music video follow the common convention of Indie Rock costumes by wearing casual, dark clothing such as black skinny jeans and dark jackets. Regarding the Mise-en-scene in the music video we mostly follow all conventions of an Indie Rock music video such as close-ups of the lead singer and close-ups of instruments to make it explicitly clear that we are an Indie Rock band and that we mostly concentrate on our music which is a common attitude in this genre.

When thinking as a group about the codes and conventions we decided that we wanted to challenge some, which in this case was that we wanted a long narrative to feature. Even though we followed the convention of including a performance, the most of the video is of the narrative. I thought this was a good idea because as a group we enjoy filmmaking therefore this was a big advantage for us as it allowed us to be more creative with the narrative which think improved our music video. Also I feel that this improved the music video as it engages the audience a lot more and leaves them wanting to know what happens at the end.

It is important when creating and researching about music videos that you should acknowledge Andrew Goodwin who is an important theorist within music videos as he states a list of rules that usually feature in most music videos. We decided to follow some of the rules stated such as a relationship between lyrics and visuals for example when the lyrics say ‘chase down an empty street’ we have our main character running down a road. Another example is when the lyrics mention ‘blood’ we show a close-up of the antagonist with blood on his face. Also we followed the rule with the relationship between music and visuals which we mainly did during the editing stage. This is due to having certain cuts on when the beat changes. A key example of this is when the song drops and a drum is heard we show Charlie the drummer hitting the drums on that exact point. Andrew Goodwin also mentions that there are Intertextual references throughout music videos therefore as a group we attempted to think of an idea to do with the narrative of the music video which is to do with fighting. In the end we thought of the idea of recreating the famous Rocky scene where he runs up the stairs as part of his training. 

As a group we also wanted to develop certain codes and conventions that Goodwin states which we chose to develop voyeurism. We did this by doing shots such as shooting through a car wing mirror of the main character running. We explicitly developed voyeurism in the fighting scene at the end of the video where it is shown through a CCTV camera which I feel that we took the voyeurism element to a different level. This shot was difficult to capture due to difficulties in getting the camera to a high point of view as we didn’t have access to the appropriate equipment such as a crane shot. Therefore, we had to adapt in which will used ladders and wooden planks to balance the tripod on.

Overall, I feel that our music does use, develop and challenge all different codes and conventions of music videos in the Indie Rock genre. I feel that we have used the appropriate conventions of performance but have also challenged certain conventions where it is necessary for us to be improved such as having a longer narrative. Also I feel it developing a convention was essential for making our music video more unique which intrigues the audience.

Digipak Final Piece

Above is my digipak final piece. I have made some changes since my last draft as I have moved the CD and the DVD into the correct places on the digipak and have turned them upside down. This is because when you put the digipak together the panels on the top would be up right as you have to fold them downwards. Also I have drastically changed my top right panel as I felt that he raffle ticket looked unprofessional however I still wanted the idea of interacting with the audience and giving the fans a chance to meet the band. Therefore instead of putting the code onto a raffle ticket I decided to put it in a box going across an image of the band. This allows it to be clearly understood and gives off a professional effect as I felt my second draft looked substandard. Also I have added spines to the digipak which I chose a grey colour by using the tool on Photoshop of which you can take colours from other images to get an exact colour. I took a grey colour form the track listing panel and used it as my spine.

Advert Poster- Final Piece

I haven't made any changes since my previous draft this is because I felt if I added more features to the poster the poster would be overrun and not give a clear image of the band. Our band strives through our band image and I felt it was important that we were the centre of the poster therefore I didn't want to distort our image. I have been attempting to improve the fonts on the poster however I feel that this is the appropriate font and font colour to use as it is the exact same as my digipak therefore I wanted to keep continuity so the audience can recognise that both products are connected.

Shoot 7

 

Shoot 7- Performance Part 2

 

 

The 7th shoot that we did was more band footage of us performing. As a group we knew we needed more performance as a whole band as most of the footage we had so far was close-ups and shots of me, the main singer, therefore we needed more of the guitarists and drummer. We again used the equipment supplied by the music department and the room supplied by the drama department. We definitely needed footage of the whole band as it is a key convention of an Indie rock band to show the band performing. As this was the second shoot we all knew what we was doing and got straight into it unlike the first shoot which we were unsure. Therefore, we developed our knowledge and knew what we wanted to capture.

In this shoot we decided to get more camera movements so the audience is more engaged. we used a trolley found in the drama department and a dolly and conducted a pan shot. Also I feel one of the most successful shots we did was the handheld camera as it gave the scene a different feel and gave the right affect of a band performance. also we felt that it was appropriate to get a shot of each member of the band performing just for editing purposes as you can hear certain instruments at certain times in the song and we want to use the Goodwin convention of relationship between music and visuals.

Overall, this shooting session was a success as it was a much quicker session and we accomplished a lot more in a shorter time period. Also I feel that we got a lot more interesting shots due to different  movements such as panning and tracking. This gave the music video a different dimension which keeps the audience engaged.

Shoot 6

Shoot 6

Shoot 6 was the final fighting scene when the main character sees his childhood bully in an alley way and turns into a fight. this scene will feature at the end of the music video as a result of all the training the main character has done throughout his life. The location that we chose had positive and negative aspects to it. The positive points were that it looked very genuine and fitted in nicely with the theme of our music video. However, we had an issue with the lighting as it was under a bridge and from some shots we found it hard to see the characters faces which was important for us as we wanted to focus on the scar of the bully to show continuity. However, sometimes this worked in our favour as from the image above you can see that the lighting complimented the scene and made the main character stand out as the protagonist.

The fight scene that we shot was choreographed beforehand so the actors knew what they were doing rather than improvised. It was better this way as we found that improvising a fight scene the person getting hit was reacting fast enough as they didn't know what the other person was going to do. Also to make the fight scene more realistic we decided to use fake blood which was a mixture of golden syrup, red food colouring and water to get the right consistency. We also added a scar using Rigid Collodion to the antagonist to show it was the same person from the beginning of the music video. Both  pieces of makeup we used came out well on camera and improved the video.

When filming the fight scene we made sure that we got a variety of shots to make the video more interesting. This was very helpful as when this was in editing we came up with the idea of putting some of the fighting in slow motion which looked better in different shots than others. We will have to come back to this location again as we was running out of light and the battery went on the camera therefore we still have to shoot the CCTV scene which we are planning to do. The CCTV scene will show the same fight scene but just from a different angle and perspective which will show voyeurism which is part of Andrew Goodwin's theory.



Shoot 5

Shoot 5

Shoot number 5 was the performance scene where we had different takes of the band singing or playing their instrument. From researching other bands in the same genre we found that nearly always that quite a lot of the video is performance based therefore we felt that it was essential that we included scenes of the band performing.

There was a lot of planning going into this shoot for example as the lead singer I had to learn the lines of the song which wasn't too hard considering that there are not many verses. Also a big part of planning was thinking of the location. Firstly we thought of filming it in the studio however we felt that our school studio doesn't look professional enough for an Indie Rock band therefore we had to look elsewhere. We found a drama room with all black walls and a small stage for our drum kit and when we played around with the lighting it looked perfect for what we wanted.

Also when planning we needed to think of how to get instruments as none of the group owned any. We asked the music department if we could borrow some equipment from them which included:

- Drum Kit
- Guitar
- Bass Guitar
- Microphone

This helped us out tremendously as without the instruments we would be unable to shoot the whole performance scene. However, none of us in the group can play an instrument therefore filming someone playing the drums when he can't actually play the drums is difficult. Therefore, we have to make sure we do quick cuts in the editing stage to make sure it looks convincing.

Overall, this session was successful as it was our first try at the performance and we didn't know what we were doing at the start but towards the end we overcome the problems and difficulties and next time we shoot this scene we should be able to start straight away without encountering problems.

Shoot 4

Shoot 4

Above are some photos take from our fourth shoot which was the scene which shows our main character training. The location in which this section was filmed was at Charlie's Grandparents shed in their garden. This location was effective as it already had the equipment that was needed and it shows the main character didn't have a fancy gym to train in had to do it the hard way. Also in this scene we plan to have a fade shot which it turns from a shot of the main character training and then turning into an older and more trained version of himself. Some of the shots that we took was Freddie (youngest actor) on the punch bag and working out doing press ups.  

When filming we attempted numerous amount of ways to portray that Freddie was going to turn into Charlie. For example, we tried to have Freddie punching the bag then pan across so he was out of the shot and when we pan back it was Charlie on the punch bag instead. Even though this came out successful when shooting when editing, the transition was far too long therefore we felt it was best to do a fade into Charlie. We felt that it was important to include this because we wanted to let the audience know that Freddie and Charlie are the same character but at a different age. 

Overall, this shooting session was a success as we got plenty of different shots and takes and we don't feel like we need to revisit this scene.Before, arriving upon location we had our doubts about what it was going to look like as we didn't know how much space we had to work with inside the shed. However, even though it was tight we managed to shoot some good takes and I feel like this will look good in our music video. 

Shoot 3

Above are the photos taken from our shoot at our location in Crystal Palace park. After researching different parks and steps that we could use, as a group we felt that the Crystal Palace park steps were ideal for what we wanted to create. The idea for this scene was first instigated by the Rocky scene where he is running up the steps for training and it represents him getting to the top having been training for a while. We decided to shoot it very similar to the way Rocky shot the scene as it makes it an intertextual reference which is included in Andrew Goodwin's music video theory.The location that we chose was perfect as the steps were very wide which is important as it wouldn't look right with narrow steps.

However, when we arrived at the location we encountered some problems. Firstly, as we do not have access to the correct equipment we had to improvise for example when Rocky is running up the steps from a high angle it is from a very high vantage point and must have been a crane shot whereas we could only use a tripod. However, the scene was a success overall as we got all of it shot in one day and when edited it came together nicely and will look good in our music video.

Digipak Advert 2nd Draft

From the feedback I was given from my class I decided to do a second draft of my advert. I was advised that my first draft of my digipak advert didn't link with my actual digipak as one was all black and white and other was in colour and a few other differences made them too different and I had to make some changes to make them similar.  The first major change was the black and white, even though the first advert had very nice colours and I wanted to keep that because of that reason I decided to make the second draft black and white which has come out well. The black and white helps link the digipak and the advert together which is important because if you see the advert you will know what digipak to purchase as the design is the same.

The second change is the colour of the font from Black to a burgundy colour. I used this colour as it is consistent throughout my digipak and it would again informs the consumer that they are both linked and  makes it easier for it to be recognisable. However I encountered a problem when doing this as I felt that the words didn't stand out enough and got lost within the picture. Therefore, I added effects such as a stroke around the lettering and small subtle shadow which I felt worked really well as it made the words stand out from the image. However, I may have a problem with the audience reading the reviews as the stroke around the lettering may obscure the words from being readable.

Digipak 2nd draft

Above is my second draft of my Digipak. The noticeable changes are mainly the CDs as from my feedback I was advised to change and rethink my idea for the CDs. With consideration I decided to use images of iconic landmarks in London to again show where the band originated from and to show they are sticking to their roots. I made the images black and white and changed the brightness and contrast of the until I thought they were the best they could. be. 

Also anther thing which I have improved on my Digipak is the colour scheme. This is because before the red was bright and clashed with the black and white rather than compliment it which i was hoping for. This change was instigated from the feedback I received which I agree with.

Finally, I have also designed a raffle ticket. This was a long process as I wasn't happy with the designs I was making and it looked unprofessional. The raffle ticket above was one of the best I designed however I am still thinking on how I can improve it as I think it could be much better. My current train of thought is that i use an image of the band holding the code in their hands for example holding some sort of board or paper and I can edit the codes on in Photoshop.