How do Goodwin's points relate to our final product?

At the beginning of this project, we researched Goodwin's theory behind what a music video should consist of. We tried applying many of his points to our own product in order to make it as successful as possible.

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics

Throughout our music video, we demonstrate different genre characteristics conventional to the style of Electro pop. We use editing techniques which reflect and fit with the upbeat tempo of the song which can be seen in the way the different shots appear on the screen to each beat in particular sections of the video. The video focuses on the single not the album. The performances given engage the audience and unlike RnB artists that seek to thoroughly explore voyeurism in their videos i.e. Britney Spears- If you seek Amy, Pussy Cat Dolls- Buttons etc. Electro pop artists seem to be in general less voyeuristic and more artistic as can be seen in the randomness of our music video. Our ideas are more original. We also display examples of bright and bold colours throughout our piece which relates to the theme of funky, electro pop.

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals
Text appears on the screen in two separate occasions displaying the lyrics of our song which can be seen 40 seconds into our video 'But now this ocean separates us..' There is another example as to how we related the lyrics with the visuals 55 seconds into the video where Aggie holds up an image of her when she was a child at the same time as the lyrics 'I never got enough attention as a child.' This is an illustrative link between the lyrics and the visuals.

3. Link between music and visuals
During different sections of the video, the images are timed to the beat of the song. 2.06 minutes into the video different images of the boom box appear at the same time of the beat, this is an illustrative link. In some parts of our music video there is lip syncing this also creates a link between the music and visuals.

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close up shots of the artist/artists and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work
Throughout our video we constantly reference to each of the artists, capturing shots of all of them. Our main artist, being Aggie as she is featured the most in the video, has many close ups of her. This relates to another of Goodwin's points, 'need to sell artist.'

5. Contain notions of looking

In many sections during our video we use notions of looking from all of our artists. The main notion of looking in which we use in the direct eye contact with the camera and therefore the audience. Each of of artists are seen to looking at the camera which gives the audience a sense that they are included in the video and are being identified as they are in a way 'being performed to'.

6. Whether the video is performance, narrative or concept based

It is obvious to see that our music video is strongly performance based. We feature sequences of the group dancing, mucking around and having fun throughout the video. This is to display our quirky style and sense of randomness.

Evaluation of our digipack

My group spent a lot of time planning what we wanted to include in our digipack and also how we wanted it to look. I conducted research into other digipacks such as Madonna- Celebration, Real Blasty and many more that I liked the look of. By doing this I was able to gain a sense ofwhat made a successful digipack. Throughout the research I done, I looked at album covers which displayed a great use of bright, bold colours for the reason that this is what my group wanted to feature in our digipack. I found that the use of bright colours captured attention and made the image stand out to the consumers eye. We wanted to use bright colours in our digipack for the reason that this was our main focus throughout our piece, the features of bright and bold colours. We wanted to use and edit images which displayed a sense of electro pop and we wanted the images to look quirky and interesting as well as relating to our artist's image.

The outsideof our digipack I think was very successful. We used an image that features in our music video of myself holding a retro telephone winking to the audience. We thought that this was a strong image to use for our front album cover as it's a cheeky image and has a sense of fun to it. We collaborated our idea of repeating the image in a mosaic style influenced by 50s British and American pop art prints created by Andy Warhol of Marilyn Monroe.

We incorporated strong bold colours in each image of myself such as blue, pink and green. We edited each image in Photoshop by using colour corrector and we also changed the contrast and the brightness of each separate image to make them stand out more. We decided to feature the artist's name as well as the album name across the middle of the piece to make it stand out as a main feature. We chose to have an image of a boom box on the back of our album cover as it's a strong image relating to the genre and style of music that our artist performs, funky electro pop. We wanted to edit the image of the boom box by changing the colour of it along with the contrast. We changed it to pink and heightened the contrast in order to make in pop out to the audience. We decided to use black font as it was the best colour that stood out from each image. I love the canted angle and low angle of the boom box as it represents the artist's feel for the music and power of their music. Featured on the back of the album cover are icons for the social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter. We thought that this would be a good idea as it encourages our consumers to follow us on each site and provides them with more information. It also provides our artist with a wider fan base and keeps them current in the world of music. We also have incorparated our artist's record label, 'Gobsmacked Records'. This is a real record label, we used this record label for the reason that it is a well known label to the majority of our social spectrum in which we are reaching out to.

I also think that the inside of our album cover is very successful. We used an image of our artist's who are featured throughout our music video. They are seen as a relateable, recognisable group of girls. We edited the image and used a contrast of colours, purple, orange and green in order to make the image stand out and be eye catching. We put tour dates of the group on the inside cover so that our consumers and target audience are aware of when and where they are touring. This creates a wider fan base and gives the group more publicity and attraction. The other image of the four different icons, I love electro music is in my mind a very strong image in the sense that electro is the style of the music that our group play so therefore our target audience love electro music. It's a very simple quirky image which applies to our audience.

I don't think that or magazine advert is as strong as our other peices. In my opinion it doesn't have a strong enough correlation to our album cover. It doesn't feature the same use of colour as the image is distorted. I think that it's a good image but doesn't relate to our main theme or idea. We used an image featured in our music video. I think that the inital image could work as a magazine advert but the way in which it is editing doesn't make in strong enough. The use of text doesn't work as it doesnt correlate to the previous peices. I think that we should of used rounder font instead of a square text. We kept the style of font from the front cover of the artist's name. This keeps an identity for our artist as our audience are able to recognise the texts from the album cover. This creates more recognisability for our artist. Featured on our magazine advert are star ratings from Q magazine. A well known music magazine. We also incorparated a caption, 'available to download from the 18th Dec on itunes', this creates more buzz for our artist and a wider fan bass.

If we could have done the magazine advert again, I would used bolder, brighter colours which relate to our other products, keeping our whole digipack in tune with eachother. I may have even changed the image as it's the same image used on the inside cover of our album.

Editing used in our digipack

To create our digipack we used the application Photoshop. We uploaded the images which we wanted to use into our templates on the programme. We then began to edit the images making them more bright and bold.

We initially had a play around with the different icons on the programme to see what was what. We found 'colour corrector' under the 'image' and 'adjustments' icon. We used the colour corrector to change the colour of each of our images in order to make them different and eye catching. We played round with the reds, the greens and the blues to get the colours that we liked. We outlined our four images with a line tool, we altered the thickness of the line and the adjustment and colour of the line. This made our images stand out a lot more by highlighting them.





After changing the colour of each of our images, we played with the contrast to make our images stand out more. Then we added in some text, 'Chromeo', 'Neon Sun', our artist name and our album name. It took us some time to select a type of font that we really liked the look of and thought would work best with our whole concept and theme.

We did the same editing techniques on the back and the inside of our album cover. The reason why was because we wanted the theme and style of our pieces to be current throughout our digipack.

I wasn't present in the initial editing of our magazine advert therefore I'm not aware of the editing styles my group used. 

Commentary Evaluation

We did a lot of planning and thinking when it came to our commentary as we wanted to include points that we thought were key and explain them to the best of our ability. We didn't incorporate as many images as we wanted due to a limited amount of time. We included images at the start of our commentary of screen shots from the music video that inspired us by Midnight Beasts- Booty Call. As we state in our commentary, we really liked the use of colourful images throughout the video and the random yet funny performance from all three artists. We wanted our piece to be similar in the sense that we wanted to depict a fun, quirky, upbeat style.

We decided that the shots where we were talking would be in black and white. For the reason that we didn't want any colour in the shot to distract the audiences attention from what we were saying. We also wanted the images that we used as examples to stand out in the commentary. We captured sequences from all five members of our group talking about specific points in our music video and answering the specific questions. We decided to swap and change each pair of people talking to 'spice' things up a bit and keep the audience interested.

If we could do the commentary again, I would use a lot more images when referring to main points and keep them displayed on the screen for longer. I would also make the commentary more visually and interactively appealing from an audience's point of view. I would do this by using different transitions for each piece of footage such as fades, wipes, dissolves etc. This would make our commentary more interesting. I think that the lack of images lets our commentary down as the audience are not able to see examples of what each person is talking about. If more images were displayed, the audience would have a better understanding of each point made.

Final commentary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnk4WqQx1kk&feature=youtu.be

Evaluation of work between our rough cut and final cut

In the first stages of creating our music video we created a rough cut. This enabled us to piece together our initial ideas and allowed us to see how well each idea constructed together. We had some problems in the first few stages of filming as some group members weren't present which meant that the group members that were there struggled with the filming. We also didn't plan our ideas to the best of our ability which meant that the whole process was rushed. We collected many of the shots that we used in our final music video, such as the boom box and the retro phone. We used the rough cut to play around with different editing techniques which we were sure would be incorporated in our final video such as the strobe effect we created with the flashes of different bright colours.

The group collected a lot of footage from around Cambridge of an artist walking around in a shop, walking around in the streets of Cambridge and they also captured images of a group of young children biking and skating in a skate park. All of these shots were good shots but they were not images that we wanted to use in our video as they didn't convey our main ideas. Therefore we scrapped the footage and had to create new images with the limited time we had. We had an idea of capturing shots of a boom box, a retro phone and a character carrying a boombox. These images were strong but we wanted to incorporate stronger images in order to create an identity for our song and artist. We then edited all of the shots. We filtered many of the images with different blends of bright, bold colours and repeated a lot of the shots.
When we created our final music video, we knew that we had a lot of work that had to be done. We wanted to create more of a sense of the artist by incorporating a recognisable group of people throughout the video. This relates back to one of Goodwin's points, 'need to sell artist.' We wanted to use a lot of fun images throughout our video to create a quirky unique style. The editing techniques in which we used were more advanced to the ones that we initially had in our rough cut video. We wanted to play on our video and make it fun as well as random. I thought that this made our video more appealing and eye catching to our target audience.

Drawing back from our previous ancillary tasks and the research that we conducted into Midnights Beasts music video we developed on our editing styles. Our main focus throughout our music video was the use of bright colours. From doing our rough cut we were able to see that the bright colours worked well alongside some of our images.
In the process of doing our rough cut video, we learnt a lot. We mainly learnt how to use of time well and gather as many good pieces of footage as possible.

Aggie's Evaluation

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

Our media product reflects an 80's electro theme continuously throughout the ancillary texts and our music video. We used several techniques to portray this theme. One of which was using fast paced editing throughout our music video to create the effect of fast movement. We used fast paced editing as it relates well to our upbeat track 'Call me up' by Chromeo and it ensures the audience remains entertained when watching the video as the image changes a lot. In addition to this it is a common convention used in current popular music videos with upbeat soundtracks. Other techniques we used in our music video which we had gained inspiration from other music videos were ones such as our mirroring technique which we used on a shot of one of the artists holding the phone, this creates an image which is more visually appealing and we know this as it is used in music videos by popular artists, such as beyonce's 1+1 video. We have also used/challenged current music videos by constantly using Goodwins points by making sure our music and visuals relate. For instance towards the beginning of our music video we have repeated images of a dance movement one of our artist had done, we repeated these images and changed the speed on them and fitted the images in the places which would sound best in relation to our soundtrack. We focused a lot on the link between music and visuals continuously using different, shorter shots because we thought this was particularly important for entertainment purposes. We also had good lyrics and visuals , like most current music videos in the media do, for instance we would show an image of the phone when the lyrics 'Call me up' were being synched. However unlike many current music videos we didn't have a strong narrative although we had good lyrics and visuals.

We also analysed products from the band Alphabeat which has also portrayed the similar 80's electro theme that our group has, throughout their images and videos. We interpreted what kind of mood and image they were trying to portray to the audience through their continuous use of bright colours and unique images and challened it by making ours seem more bold in comparison.

How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary texts? The combination of our main product and ancillary texts is extremely effective as they all relate well together and produce the same concept for the audience. This is because throughout the ancillary texts we use neon yellow font as the main text to sell our products. We did this as it reflects the name of our album ‘neon sun’ that we will be promoting to the consumer. As well as using the same bright texr we have also continued to use bright colours throughout our ancillary texts, the cd album cover and the magazine ad, to continue our pitch of the 80’s concept we want to sell to the consumer. This is ensuring that the consumers are reminded of the theme our music and artists represent. The image our promotional package creates of the artist is one that is bold and funky. This is because the magazine cover is unique with how bright and neon the colours are that are featured within the image . Our image that we use in the magazine advert also shows four figures, which aren’t clearly seen, which also makes it more exciting for the consumer to want to watch the video to find out the real images of the artist. Also the use of all four figures on the magazine ad, unlike the cd cover, clarifies that the artist is a group , and not single. We use other images on our cd album cover, such as ella holding the phone as this is a noticeable image taken from our music video, we did this to ensure that our hit single is being represent on our cd cover. Our promotional package are successful at attracting the target audience, ( younger audience, from teenager years to late twenties) because they outline clearly in bold writing the dates in which the artist intends to tour and where it will be located. In addition to this our magazine advert displays that the artists got a 5* review from a popular, formal music magazine. This would appeal to the consumer as it implies that the music has potential to be popular. What have you learnt from your audience feedback? We received very good feedback from peers in our class. They claimed we had strongly applied our main product to Goodwin’s points by relating music and visuals and lyrics and visuals to each other throughout our music video. This was important to our group as we wanted to ensure our video wouldn’t bore our audience if we had too little shots , as the beat is very fast. We were also given good feedback on our use of imagery , for instance bright colours and bold font , as it relates well to our theme. Furthermore we were told we made good use of the green screen , as we took advantage of this bland background and changed the colour of the screen every time a shot appeared on screen, this ensured the audience was entertained when our shots repeated with the green screen. Other positive feedback we received was on our use of varied props for our main product. Our use of the phone, phonebox and picture ensured that we got good feedback on our mise en scene as it makes the 80’s setting and activity occurring in the video seem more realistic. In addition to this our costumes were apparently fitting with our theme and they had no criticisms for them. Negative feedback we received for our main product was that there isn’t much of a narrative to our music video, which is true in comparison to some current music videos of today. However the shot shorts which can appear random and chopped up reflect the fast beat of our song and as the lyrics ‘call me up’ are repeated a lot , we thought it would be best not to produce a strong narrative as we wouldn’t be able to follow Goodwin’s theory as strongly as we have. Another criticism we received was that our lip synching in places could have been improved, but was overall good. Also we were told some of our shots were a bit blurry and could be made clearer if we were going to improve it. However we did intend for a couple of our ‘dancing shots to be blurry as this indicates more of a ‘disco’ environment.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Our main media technology we used to produce our music video was the programme Final Cut. Final Cut first of all enabled us to easily and sufficiently download all of our rough footage onto the computer quickly. By being quick to download it meant our group had more time to edit footage. We were able to place our footage on to a timeline which displayed all of our work clearly, so we knew how much we had done and how much more we had to accomplish. We could also use this timeline to move our soundtrack around , and move our footage around and place effects on different lines above shots that we wanted to have a technique. In addition to this the use of movement was what enabled our group to be able to check that the lip synching was correct. Final cut was also really good for the use of editing footage , we were able to speed up or slow down clips which we needed to change to visually appeal to the audience more, or to fill/reduce a certain space or gap. We were also able to change the colour of the green screen background by using this programme as it had the feature colour corrector. We could also add in text as well as editing original footage, we found this extremely useful and the text within our music video is a major part of our product as it is unique. One of the main technical programmes we used which was featured on the apple mac was Photoshop. We used this programme for the production of our CD album cover and for the Magazine advert . We used features on the programme that helped us edit and adapt specific parts of our promotional package more easily than any other programme would have, for instance it helped us focus more on the colour and the font. We used Photoshop to repeat the main image we used of Ella on the CD album cover , which created a unique effect. We used the internet, by using websites such as Blogger to continuously update the stage that our group was at with our work and our research into current music videos/ We would collect ideas for our main product and ancillary texts and display them on Blogger. We could then discuss in class, in our groups which ideas we thought would look best by reflecting over what we had originally posted on the page. Blogger enabled our group to reflect over any forgotten work or progress we intended to make/achieve by the end of the production of our main product. We also used Google to research into inspirational ideas for our main product and ancillary texts. Also to compare our main product and ancillary texts to present day music videos and promotional packages. We used good equipment for our music video to ensure the best possible visuals for our audience, because we clearly would want to make our music video appeal to them , to sell the artist. We did this by using HD cameras and a tripod. The HD cameras ensured that the audience had good visual quality as all of the shots that were featured in the video would be clear, and define colour clearly. The use of the tripod meant that our shots were steady, as shaky shots, which aren’t purposefully meant to be handheld look unprofessional. In addition to this the use of the tripod meant that our group could easily achieve varied shots, such as canted angles and high or low angles, as the use of the tripod means that the camera can adapt to different angles easily.

Tom's Final Evaluation

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




We looked throught songs we knew on the internet to get inspiration for our piece, one music video that we used was Booty Call by Midnight Beast. It was inspiring to us because of the different ways in which it presents some of the lyrics. There were a few shots we also liked from the video and it looked low budgeted which was something we had to take into consideration when making our music video. All the band members are dressed in random clothes and all the props where easy, they were just household items, just like in ours where the random costume of a cow and the easy props of just phones and photos. Our video relates to there's because they are both funky and have a fun vibe.

One of Goodwin's points was the link between visuals and lyrics, for this we used some props which related to what lyrics where being sung at the time. The strongest example of this is when it says 'Never got enough attention as a child' and whilst this line is being sung one of the band members shows a picture of her as a child. Also midway through our piece the lyrics come up on the screen as the words are being sung and we use a variety of fonts.  This is another strong link between lyrics and visuals. Our inspiration for using this technique comes from the video 'All of the lights' by Kayne West and Rhianna.

The genre of our product was a 80's retro, electric fuck vibe, we showed this by the use of bright colours that we used throughout the piece and from the costumes used.

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

All the items in our promotional package fit together well, in all of them at least one of the band members feature in it and the colours used throughout are bright vibrant ones. Through our promotional package we try to give the impression that Chromeo are a small band and that are trying to get bigger. We did this by putting a list of tour dates on the inside of our CD cover, we also put the links for Facebook and Twitter on the front of the case, hoping to improve the amount of fans.

The promotional package creates the image of the band as funky electro, this impression is given out through all the bright colours used in the costumes and the editing techniques used throughout the trio. The concepts we used in our promotional package would be successful at attracting our target audience of 16-30 because of the link in technology we used, we used things like Twitter and Facebook to communicate with the fans, these kind of technologies are generally used by people in the age range of 14 to 35 almost perfectly fitting our target audience.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback? 


The most important feedback was that given to us about our rough cut, feedback we got from it was generally postive about our quick paced editing and a good quality of different editing techniques used to make clips look better. But we only had around 50 seconds of our rough cut to hand in and therefore a lot of the feedback contained people writing should be longer. All the negative feedback we got from the video we tried to improve the bit that people didn't like or we replaced it with a new clip, all the positives we tried to leave in our video.

Feedback on our final piece was a lot different, there was a lot of positives about how we kept to Goodwin's points well. One example of our feedback was that the music and visuals were clearly linked and very effective in the quick editing of our video, and the timing between some of the cuts and the beat of the song we perfectly timed.
The camera work was positively reviewed and the only negative was about the footage being blurry at one point, but that effect was meant to be given because of the darkness in the room and the lights it was meant to give across the feel of the audience being there at the 'party'. The one piece of feedback which is very important to us is the some of the lip sync in the footage was slightly out of time but seeing as not everyone noticed it shouldn't be to much of a problem

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


We used many new technical programs on the computer to design all of our products, the most important one was final cut express which allowed us to import all of our footage and then cut it down to this bits we wanted. It allowed us to lay out all of our footage in a timeline so we can easily see where each of the clips are when we come to edit them. We used some of the editing techniques available on final cut like the ability to adapt the speed of the piece and the use of colour corrector so we could edit the colours to make it more appealing, we also were able to change the green screen into the colour background of our choice which is a huge part of our video.  We used Photoshop when it came to our CD case and magazine ad because its the easiest to use to edit items and has the widest variety of editing tools. This variety came in handy when it came to the colours for our CD case and the effects on the front tittle font.

We used the internet loads to get inspirations, first of all we looked at music videos that we know about to get some ideas, when then researched all about Chromeo so that we knew what kind of music genre they are. The main site we used on the internet was Blogger, this was really helpful because we could blog all our work so when we are at home we can see what has been done and what hasn't. We can also use it as a way of communication in the group because if someone posts what props we need for filming then we can all access it from home so we can come prepared.

We used HD cameras which gave a good quality to our video so that the audience get the best possible view of the band, at one point in the dark room when the lights go on and off the camera shot is slightly blurred which is the feel we wanted to get across because its meant to feel like the audience are in the club with them. We used the tripod for the camera so that all of our shots were still and not ruined by hand movement, the tripod allowed us to get good steady shots from a range of angles, distances and heights.

Editing used in our Final Music video

In our final video we used many different editing techniques to make the footage keep in theme with our colourful 80's feel, we got loads of inspiration from videos of artists who use the same genre if editing to sell their music piece. We used some of Chromeo's videos to see what colours they used and what props they used because we wanted to portray our music video in the same style that they do. One of the effects we used throughout the video is colour corrector, as many of our shots were filmed in the green room we were able to change the colours and effects of this background making similar or even the same shot look different. Giving the audience a variety of images ensuring they do not lose attention. We also used the technique of adding text, in sync with the lyrics.

We used loads of different colours in our piece to make it more appealing to the target audience we did this by using the colour corrector tall on Final cut express, this allowed us to change the colour of all the clips used in our video.

We used the colour corrector in the piece add a nice colourful effect on the stereo to make the clip look more appealing then just the plain old colours which it was before.

From using the green screen we could change the colour of the background to make it fit with our funky and fun attitude to making the final piece, we could play around with the colours to make the artist stand out as much as we could.





We also used a mirror effect on one piece of out final video


*unfinished*

Chloe's evaluation

1) What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The genre of our product is retro/80's with lots of colour and excitment. We looked at music videos such 'Midnight beast- Booty call' this consists of colourful themes, textual lyrics and a impressive performance from the artists. They also used mise en scene such as telephones and props to fit the lyrics. Although the genre of music was differant compared to our 'Chromeo- Call me up' we still wanted our video to look visually similar. We also looked at bands such as Alphabeat who have a very consistand mood and theme across all their products. Things like tapes and record players and even balloons to acheive a happy and cheerful approuch to music. Another product we were inspired by was 'Little commits- One night in October' where their lyricss are shown on a blackboard with chalk while the artist lip syncs, we liked this effect as it made it more intresting. When it came to editing our music video we used certain effects to make our product more exciting. By mirroring some of our images, adding filters and effects to some clips to add colour and cutting up our clips so they can be repeated to match with the beat of our song. We noticed that various famous arists have used these features in their videos like Beyonce, they turn a potentually boring clip into something more entertaining and intresting to watch as an audience.

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

When producing our magazine advert and digipack we wanted both of them to match the theme of our video and track. For the magazine we used a screen shot from the video (image of us four girls) and edited it to make it funky and fresh with vibrant pinks and yellows. The title on the magazine was in the same font as the CD cover (a bit) we wanted to keep things consistant and noticable to our audience by using things like luminious colours, bold writing and vibrant images. Our digipack consists of a pop art theme (Maralin monroe/Madonna) front cover of Ella holding a retro plastic phone while winking to add a little cheese to things. We kept the back cover simple of just a speaker with the track names down the side. The inside covers were also simple with a colourful image and tour dated in bold writing.

3) What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

I have learnt that a little more planning would go a long way. And to be realistic when it comes to ideas. As we had a limited time and budget we should of originally stuck with college phacilities like the green and dark room and shouldnt of spent a whole evening shooting pointless footage. We also should of learnt the song more as the lip syncing wasnt perfect. Our rough cut feedback was relitivly negative as we didnt have all our footage on final cut however our final feedback was alot more positive as they liked the jump cuts, costumes, props, performance and the use of colours as they all fit with the theme and genre of our music.

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

While using programmes such as final cut exspress and photoshop I learnt many tricks and tips such as changing the colour of the background on the green screen, changing the effect and filters on photoshop and how to mirror an image. The blogger was also useful because it kept us organised and helped us when looking back on our posts for inspiration when we needed it. The HD cameras were brilliant when it came to shooting, they were high quality and easy to use. By using a tripod this helped us film footage without worrying about shacking and unproffesional footage. For our music video filming we used a battery powered speaker system which produced a load and clear audio for us to film, this also helped to motivate the performers to make them get stuck into it instead of a standard performance. One evening we did want to film outside infront of a wall of grafiti on Newmarket road however the conditions were dark and cold by 4.00pm and our only source of lighting was only available with a plug. Things like weather and lighting did limit our filming times and locations and so we stuck to inside venues so we could rely heavily on editing skills. Overall I beleive our end product was sucessful considering the time and budget and I do beleive we kept a consistant theme and mood throughout our video and digipack.

Commentary Script

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
-The genre of our music video is electro pop.
-Our media products in some way follow the conventions of real media products, for example, we have used a conventional filming style for the main aspect of our video.
-We followed some of Goodwin's points, need to sell artist, by incorporating long and mid shots of the different characters.
- We followed editing conventions by incorporating fast cuts and jumps cuts, this keeps the audience's attention as they have lots to look at.
- We were influenced by the song 'Booty Call' by Midnight Beasts. We liked the textual lyrics and colorful themes.
- We also liked the quirky stlye and how the randomness worked.
-We followed Goodwin's theory by relating our visuals with our lyrics, which can be seen through the use of the phone props and the text on the screen.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
- Our main aim was to keep our theme of electro pop current.
- Throughout our ancillary tasks we studied and explored different ways to convey our ideas.
- Our digipack incorparates the use of bright and bold colours. This relates to our electro pop vibe.
-Throughout our ancillary tasks we displayed examples of these bright, bold colours and kept elaborating on them.
- This relates all three of our products together and gives our artist an 'identity.'


What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
- The group of students we recieved our feedback from, are all of the criteria to fit our target market. Making the feedback they gave us very important to improve our video.
- This was especially valid after developing our rough cut which was not so successful, we found that a common point the group made was the lack of lip syncing in our video, meaning we were able to incorporate this more to fufill this part of the marking criteria.
- All the feedback we were given was very posotive when talking about our visual themes and ideas, showing that this was an attractive element to our typical target audience. With this information we confidently focused on this element in all three of our final products.

Lauren's Evaluation for final product

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

The genre of our music video was electro, this was a very important element in our planning stage as our artist of Chromeo is a valid figure in the electro sub-genre of electro funk, and therefore we wanted to sustain this image. The typical conventions for this genre is constant variation of shots to fit the fast pace of music. After researching into many different products in the music industry we found this was a main convention used in a range of genres. To follow this we frequently used the technique of speeding some of our shots up, so the audience’s focus would not be on the same thing for a long length of time.

We tried to constantly refer to Goodwin’s theory by relating the visuals and lyrics, to do this we included the use of text in sync with the lyrics. The use of props was also contributed to meeting this convention, we included a phone in many of our shots. The shot of our main character on the bed with a phone in her hand portrays what the lyrics are saying, as the character is anxiously waiting for a phone call.

This use of a main character repeated throughout is also a common feature used in music video, giving the audience a clear link throughout and creating some sort of narrative/structure.

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

Our main aim for was to keep the theme of electro pop visible in all three of our products, and for them to work together recognisably promoting the same artist. In our planning stage we researched many real media products following this genre to gather inspiration for both our video and ancillary texts. To ensure our concept of fun electro pop was easily recognised. This research included looking at many different album artworks, we were particularly inspired by Madonna’s celebration album cover which uses a similar style of imagery as Andy Warhol’s famous pop art. We decided to use this idea on the front of our digipack using a single screen grab from our video and repeating it by using various bold contrasting colours, fitting with the conventions of our genre. Making it clear to the audience what the album contains with just simply seeing the album on a shelf. This also creates a clear link between this text and our video, meaning the audience can clearly recognise and link together both parts of the package i.e. the digipack and the main video.

The use of screen grabs from our video in both our magazine advert and digipack, makes clear connections between these and our music video. The repetition of our characters in energetic poses, helps make this link and portray our concept of a funky 80’s genre. For example the image on the front of our digipack of one of our characters winking, portrays the artist as being slightly cheeky and of a very fun nature. This is something that clearly relates to our video as there are many shots of characters dancing generally having a good time.

All three of these products use the same concept , shown through the use of similar imagery and colour qualities. Working well to attract our target audience of young adults, of which this genre of music usually is most popular with.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Overall I have recognised a great change in the feedback from our rough cut compared to the feedback from our final piece. We knew after finalising our rough cut that we had a lot of work to do to make our video successful. Our audience feedback helped us in doing this as we were able to realise what parts were successful, and which parts needed to be developed.

Much of our feedback from the rough cut said our video had little amount of lip sinking in, which is a main part of the marking criteria. This made us realise we had to add a lot more of this in, and we were able to film this in our last overnight period. Quite a big problem for us when creating our rough cut was the lack of variety of shots we needed to keep the audience’s attention. The class feedback we received from our final piece, comments on the good use of varied shots, showing we took this issue into account and was able to resolve it.

After reading the final feedback we have received from our peers, which would be categorised into our chosen target audience, I think our music video has used the different elements of any media piece to successfully attract and audience.

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

The use of different technologies ensured we could make the best use of our footage and that all three of our media products fit well into our chosen theme. We were constantly varying the colour qualities in shots and sequences, to do this we used colour corrector a feature of final cut, many of our shots were filmed in the green room, meaning we could easily manipulate the background to create a more interesting effect. We used the techniques available in Photoshop to distort the still images used in our promotional package, such as variation of colour and hue and saturation. These aspects were used to entice our audience and create a stand out effect. The use of HD cameras to film our video meant that we could get high quality of shot types and film from long distances and still get clear images. This was particularly helpful in filming shots such as the close up of the phone box as this could be done at a distance but we could still get the exact shot that we had planned.

Other Students Commentary to Analyse

http://05longroadmusicvideo10.blogspot.com/2010/12/commentary.html

I thought that this commentary was good as it covered all of the points in great detail. The group took it in turns to give their own veiws and opinions on the question and video, this was effective as we are able to get a range of comments from each person who partook in the making of the video. In the first part of the video they go into some depth as to how the video challenges as well as conforms to other typical pop videos. I like the way that the group use clips from their video to demonstrate what they are talking about. This is good as the veiwer is able to see an example and are able to understand the point in greater detail.  They also display images of their digipack on screen to further explain and demonstrate their points, I really like the idea of making the commentary virtual as they have done because it allows the audience the chance to interact with the commentary on a higher level.

Half way through the groups commentary, they change the location of where they are talking. I don't think that this is good, it could look a lot more proffesional if they kept to one location. In some sections of the video, one member is seen to be looking down to the floor, reading out his notes. This isn't good as it looks very unproffesional.

Directors Commentary

A directors commentary is an account coming from the director of a media product/ performance, allowing them to look back and analyse their final product. Indentifying what has worked well and also not so well.

There are many different ways that a directors commentary can be made:
One way is to have a video interview with members of the cast and the directors. This would be interrupted by sequences from the product (music video) by using the technique of split screen or a screen in the corner of the frame playing the video. This is a more engaging type of commentary as the viewer can see the director’s reactions to the video whilst visually seeing the section that is being discussed. A group interview is also helpful as many different people’s opinions can be considered, giving a wider range of feedback.
Another way to create a directors commentary is to have the video running, whilst there is an ongoing voice over talking through sections of different sequences. This is a successful way to produce this as it ensures the viewers attention is completely on the footage; therefore they can have a deeper understanding of the points the director and or cast are trying to make.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKXDRt8nzSA

Above is and example of a directors commentary one of the many Miley Cyrus's M and M dance crew battle videos. A series of her videos posted on youtube. The idea of this commentary was to provide the viewer with a commentary of a youtube video, something that is very rarley done. It also explains the difficulties they have had to deal with such as copy right and time managment issues, giving the viewer their side of the story, as this action could of portrayed bad publicity towards them. This commentary uses the second technique i have discussed of a constant voice over talking through clips from the video and also various parts from her other videos. This can be a very effective technique as it means the viewers attention is visulaly on the video, but can relate to what the director/cast is explaining. However the video playing is quite fast paced and very busy, meaning whilst watching it i found myself getting distracted by the constant footage, therefore at times i was not taking in the analysis of the video. I think the video would be more effective if there was clips of backstage/behind the scenes footage as the clips shown do stay the same throughout.

Ella's Evaluation

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

Our media products in some way follow the conventions of real media products, for example we have used a conventional filming style for the main aspect of our video. Long shots of the characters, mid shots of certain characters, close up of different props i.e retro phone and telephone box. These shots are all found in real media products and by using them we have followed some of Goodwin's points. By having long shots as well as mid shots of the different characters, we followed Goodwin's point of selling the artist.
We have followed editing conventions of real media products as we have incorporated fast cuts and jump cuts, which are clear throughout as the shots change frequently. This keeps the audience's attention and gives them a lot to look at.

I feel that our media products all convey the genre of funky electro. This is the theme that we were trying to capture all throughout this task and I feel that we have achieved this but in doing so have created a unique style of our own. I think that our unique style comes from the funness and quirkiness of our music video. We've included many shots of many different things which when bought together create a fun style and theme for our video. When doing the research into other artists music videos, we were mainly influenced by Midnight Beast. We loved the quirky style of their video and how the randomness worked.

We have also challenged the conventions of real media products by portraying the characters in our video as relateable as they are seen to be normal people having fun. In many examples of artist, they are portrayed as untouchable, a prime example being Lady Ga Ga.

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

The combination of our main product and our ancillary tasks are very effective as they all use the idea of the vibe and genre we wanted to created in our digipack. Throughout the ancillary tasks, we have studied and explored different styles of this and different ways to convey our ideas. We've looked at different themes, different video styles, different digipack styles and all of this has contributed in the finalisation of our main product. Our ideas combined along with the knowledge we gained from doing ancillary tasks have proved effective as they all have a common factor which has come together to create our final piece. In ancillary tasks we used bright colours and bright, bold images to represent our band. This was the whole idea from the start of this project and by using our ideas throughout, we were able to expand and develop them in order to create a better product. Overall, the combination of the music video with the ancillary tasks has proved effective as they all use the same main factors. They focus on funkiness and boldness and they follow a simplistic look. This combination makes them effective as a promotional package.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We gained feedback mainly from our target audience as well as people close to our target audience to help us in the creation of all our media products; our music video, digi-pack cover and magazine advert. The audience feedback that we got given was really helpful. At the beginning of the project we done a pitch to our class about our initial ideas. The class were really intrigued and said that they really liked the main ideas behind our pitch such as the incorporation of bright bold colours and the writing of different lyrics. We then created our roughcut piece which wasn't the best and my whole group was aware of this. The feedback however was very positive, they said that we needed to develop on the video and also incorporate more stronger images in relation to our song. We took all the criticisms into account along with the positives and redone our music video. The feedback for our final music video was very positive. Our audience said that they loved how the visuals linked with the lyrics and they also said they liked the use of jump cuts as they related to the upbeat feel of the song. All of the feedback our audience gave us was very good as the points they made such as the use of bright colours, the performance side of the video etc. were things that we wanted to put across in our video and they said that we done this very well.

Overall the feedback that we received from our audience was extremely helpful as we were able to receive they're ideas and criticisms which enabled us to make alterations to our piece in order to make it better.

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

By using many different types of media technologies we created many opportunities to design, create and improve our media products.
In the research stages our main resource was the Internet, especially websites such as 'Youtube' and 'Google images', to gain background ideas on Chromeo and different techniques other artists used within their digipacks and how music videos follow different conventions when made for different styles of music. By using these types of websites, alongside our class work, we identified the main conventions of a music video. In the planning stage we used digital cameras to capture all our written ideas and our shot ideas. These photographs were then put on the blog so we could see all our planning in one place.

To film the main aspect of our video we used a HD camera, this would give us a high definition video for the end product meaning that the footage would be a lot clearer than footage from an ordinary camera.

To create our music video we used Final Cut Express. It allowed us to use different tools in order to create cuts, changes in colour, changes in speed etc. By using Final Cut Express we learnt how to change a green screen which is something that in my previous work I've never done. Altering the green screen enabled us to use different coloured backgrounds which developed the main theme of our music video. We used many other techniques in Final Cut Express which made our video a lot more innovative and interesting.

We used Photo Shop to create both our ancillary tasks. We experimented with many different images available in our video as we weren't sure which ones were best for our digipack. We played around with the contrast of different images as well as the colours. We uploaded our images which we wanted to use and from there we were able to have a play around with the different tools available such as colour corrector. From using the different tools, we were able to altar the colour of our different images along with the contrast. We also altered the whole look of our images, as seen in our magazine advert. This enabled us the chance to use an image from our video yet change it so that it wasn't that recognisable to the audience. Photoshop allowed us to incorporate text into our images. We played around with the location and stance of different texts.

We are so happy with the final outcome of our digipack. We think that all of the images display our wanted theme and many of the ideas which have been current throughout this task have been displayed in the construction of our piece.