Final commentary

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

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.

Digi pack

This is the inside cover for our album.

This is the front cover for our album.

This is our magazine advert.

Feedback On Final Music Video

Goodwins Theory:
Genre characteristics = fits genre well, nice and upbeat, colourful and dancing present.
Lyrics and Visuals = clear link between lyrics and the visuals of the song. For example 'call me up' with the telephone and also the picture of the childhood photo when the lyrics are 'never got enough attention as a child'
Music and Visuals = Pace of video fits the pace of the song.
Demands of record label = lots of shots of artist, works well to suit the pop genre.

Editing:
alot of jump cuts works well as it is an up beat song.
transitions on the phone at the beginning looks unique and good.
Green screen used - allows the focus to be on the people within the video, lots of different colours used with this fits the 80s pop theme.
Use of text works well again due to the vibrant colours.

Camera work:
Variety of shots from long shots to close ups.
Nice shots but bit blurred at times.
Frame positioning is good
Only downside is the shots are some time slightly blurred but not sure if its the quality of video on blogger.

Mise-en-scene:
Nice variety of props
Costumes fits song style and theme
Locations - not a wide variety but then this genre doesnt really need alot focus on dancing and colours.

Creativity and Performance:
Storyline bit vagure but the focus is put on the performance.
Creative idea present.
Lip syncing - bit out of sync out of times so this could have been improved.

Chromeo Artist research

Chromeo is composed of P-Thugg (real name Patrick Gemayel, born in Lebanon) on keyboards, synthesizers, and talk box, and Dave 1 (real name David Macklovitch) on guitar and lead vocals. The two childhood friends jokingly describe themselves as "the only successful Arab/Jewish partnership since the dawn of human culture. The duo met in the mid-1990s, The debut album, She's in Control, released in 2004, defined Chromeo and started their music career. It was pretty much a failure at all levels. But we had “Needy Girl,” and “Needy Girl” was like a musical passport. That song went all around the world and DJs played it everywhere. he album took them on a two-year world tour performing in festivals such as Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds in the UK, Fujirock in Japan, Iceland Airwaves in Iceland, Pemberton Music Festival in Canada and Coachella, Bonnaroo, Rothbury Festival and Lollapalooza in the US.

Influences for our Digipack

Whilst beginning to produce our digipack, we were infuenced by 50s British and American pop art prints created by Andy Warhol. This is a famous print of Marilyn Monroe, in which we have used as inspiration for the front of our digipack. We really liked the funky and quirky style of the image and we thought that an image similar would reflect the funkiness of our music video. We thought of incorparating an image from our video which features a character holding a phone. This reflects the whole message of our song 'Call me up'. We used photoshop to create various contrasting colour techniques.

Visual theme ideas for our magazine advert

Our ideas for the visual themes come from many of the concepts from our music video. For instance we have projected many strong images throughout the video which reflect an 80's theme. We reflect this theme through the use of bright colours and clothes and materials which relate to that era. Our continuous repetition usage of these images ensures the audience is definitely aware of the theme our music track portrays. Therefore we will continue to use this 80's theme with the use of bright colours in our magazine advert.

One of our ideas for our magazine advert is to capture an image from our music video which is repeated throughout the music video several times. One of the images we think could represent our theme well, is an image of all four of the characters featured within the video standing next to each other in the same stance/position. We thought this would be a good image to use as it portrays a clear representation of who will be featuring in our music video. In addition to this , the way the characters are all laid out on the scream creates a distinct image as we are all looking straight ahead at the camera, therefore it would feel to the audience as though we were looking at them ( grabbing their attention). Also our clothes we were wearing within the screen shot are still reflecting our 80's theme. We would aim to brighten up the image if we were to use that screen shot. This is because it would make a clear distinction from our original image and the one we will want to use in our magazine advert, the use of bright colour would also grab the reader's attention more.

Another one of our ideas for the magazine advert is to take a photo shoot of our characters featured within the group, still dressed in their 80's clothing, and to sit them on a giant speaker. This would create a bold image as it would portray to the reader of the magazine that our sound track is one which you will want to be listening to on a big speaker. In addition to this the big speaker would reflect the size of speakers that would have been used in the 80's. We would have our characters sitting on/ posing with the speaker to portray attitude and style which would make the image appealing to the reader. The background would be in the green room as this allows us to replace the background with an original image, which we could take ourselves or get off of Google. This would make our magazine image more original and interesting.

Our third idea for our magazine advert is to have the image of the girl holding the phone, relating the the lyrics in the song as if she's waiting for it to ring. The use of the phone is repeated throughout the video, therefore this image is recognisable to our video. This mirror image of the girl relates to the funky 80's style theme of our video. For our advert we would exaggerate this by using a bolder colour scheme, to make the image more lively attracting the audience more powerfully. We would have the name of the artist, album and release date etc on the bottom of the image in the gap shown, this would mean the attention is still on the image yet the main conventions of a magazine advert are still shown, and are clearly visible.

Final Music Video

Roughtcut

Research of Music Video's which have been succesful - VMA music task

Practise Research - R & B Moodboard

These were R & B artists which were inspiring for our R & B genre, for our original research of our promotional cover. However we decided not to follow this genre in the end.

Some of the artists captured on our mood board are extremely well known names and would appeal to the target audience we aim to attract. Therefore we took ideas from the outfits they are featured  wearing to inspire us with our mise en scene ideas for our music video, with 'Call me Up' by Chromeo. The genre of R & B follows specific conventions in order to attract both a female and male audience. In the more stylised male R & B music, money is a popular theme featured throughout the videos. There are many references to wealth and money. The majority of artists are wealthy and successful and it tends to be rappers that have strong reference to money in their videos. This is a way of showing the audience their power and wealth, often communicated through the mise en scene i.e. their jewllery. Women in R & B videos are represented as voyeurs. They're used to add appeal to the video. This is mainly conveyed through their lack of clothing and provoking dance routines. They mainly feature in male videos, this is because the target audience will have a heavy response. R & B music videos usually have more of a narrative perspective which is more likely to be a story told throughout the video which strongly links to the lyrics of the song. An example of this is the video Like a Boy by Beyonce. The emphasis in this video is the heartache women go through by men. The song expresses how a men takes advantage of a woman and how women treat men with more respect. The video conveys this story through Beyonce acting out a day to day life of her partner.

Test shots- Point of view shot

 These were our original shots, with no editing.

 These were our shots after editing them with colour corrector and matte effect to display the image with enhanced shadows. We made the saturation higher to create this unique colour.

Practice promotional image in the genre of R n B

This image reflects the genre of R n B because it displays the urban background, which is a stereotypical representation of an R n B location. We chose to dress the artist in clothes which contrast with the background to make her seem the main focus of the cover. In addition to this the artist's top stands out in the image because of the unique pattern. The artists stance represents a very layed back persona which is a common convention of RnB. We chose to have the artist looking off in the background in order to create a more naturalistic image.

Mise-en-scene

This is some of the mise-en-scene we are planning to use in our promotional video. The boom box is a main focus that we have in mind to use in our video. It could be a motif that features throughout the video in various places. The retro phone is something that we want to incorparate into our video as our song is all about phones 'Call me up' and the style we want to convey is an old electro pop style. The rest of the images are images that we are considering using but our ideas are constantly developing and changing throughout this process.

Shot Angles

This is the list of camera angle shots that we have decided we would like to include in our video

• Wide shot
• Mid close up
• Mid shot
• Close up
• Long shot

We feel that these shots will make our video eye catching and in using a vast variety of these shots which will appear throughout the video will create more of an appeal and make our audience more stimulated to watch the video.

These are some of the techniques in editing we will use are:

• Cut
• Fast cut
• Jump cut
• Split screen

These editing techniques will keep the flow of our video and make it more visually appealing. The jump cuts will allow a sudden change from one shot to another which will keep the audience more interested.

UNFINISHED

Planning

The first picture is of our planner that we made so that we can see what days we have lessons and what dates and then we can see how these relate to our deadlines, it also helps us plan out what timing we have for example how many lessons we have to do all of our shooting.

This image is of our 'bubbles' of which contain the list of props each individual needs to bring in order for filming to take place.

This last one is just a summary of all of the props, ideas, locations and shot angles that we have decided to use in our video, these are the least we will need and things will be added.

Initial Ideas

We listened to a playlist of 12 different songs, many of which were different genres of music, ranging from R n B to country western. We noted down a list of initial thoughts that we gathered from listening to each track. Out of the 12 tracks we chose our three favourites. These were Chromeo- Call me up, Say Yeah feat Lupe Fiasco and Sky Surfing and Florence and the Machine.

Our initial emotions of the song Chromeo- Call Me Up were upbeat feelings. When we heard the song, we visualised lots of bright and bold colours such as blue, oranges, yellows and reds; mainly 80's derived colours. The lyrics are heavily based on a phone call, so for this reason we thought the objects used could be a phone, a turn table, big speakers and a keyboard.