Final commentary

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

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.

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.

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 the Digipack

We want our digipack to entice features from our music video and include an image/s which are current and noticeable throughout the video. Many of the themes in which we want to use is the main convention of the 80's style which is present in the video along with the funky, bright and bold colors as well as writing. This will be the main feature of our digipack.

Some of the ideas which we have for the front of our digipack is to include an image from one of the shots in the video of the characters. This will keep the idea current and will enable our audience the oppurtunity to relate to the theme. One of the shots that we are thinking of putting on the front of our digipack is the image of all four characters at the beginning of the video. We would change the colour of the image and make it more bright, bold and enticing to the audience. The background arguably doesn't represent our theme in the best way, so therefore we would hopefully change this in photoshop to make the image more relateable with the music video.

Another image we are thinking of incorparating is the image of one character winking to the camera, holding a retro phone. This is a fun playful image and keeps with the main idea of a phone which features in both the song lyrics and the music video. We would change the color and make it more bold and bright, drawing our audience in.

Another theme that we could place on the front of our digipack is the character in a cow suit. This image could be called our motif as it features throughout the video and is something that is recognised by the veiwer. It's also a jokey image and is very playful. To make the image more appealing, we would change the colours and maybe the background.

On the front of our digipack, we will include the classic conventions of a digipack, the name of the artist, the name of the album and reveiws from MTV and other music organisations. We want the font to be bold, eyecatching and really funky in order to capture the audience's attention. We were thinking of having the name of the album slightly smaller then the name of the artist for the reason of 'need to sell the artist'. We think that having each letter a different color would be interesting. The reveiws from a range of music organisations will feature at the bottom of our front cover in noticably smaller font then the name of the artist and ablum. We are debating as to whether to have the font style funky and bold or to have it plain and simple. We will also include star ratings from music organisations, these will be big above the reviews. The star ratings will be good to have as they attract attention from the audience as to how good the album is.

On the back of digipack we will include our tracklisting for our album aswell as the record label company. The font for our tracklisting will be the same as our album name and artist name font to keep in with the theme.

Final Music Video

Roughtcut

Things We Liked.

We really liked these images of 80's themed things. The images all use bright and bold colors and are very funky. This is the idea that we want to convey in our music video.

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

Inspiration and Ideas

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

Little commets- One night in october

We found a lot of inspiration for our own music video from this video. We liked the unique, quirkey style throughout the video and we wanted to incorparate some of the ideas current in our own music video. The main idea which we fell in love with was the staggered writing on the chalk board seen in the image below. As the artists sing the lyrics to the song, each word is written on the chalk board as the lyrics are sung. This technique would be time consuming as we would have to write each word seperately and keep stopping and starting the camera but it is something that we would want to use in our video. We were thinking of writing the lyrics for the chorus, which features the words 'You can call me up, day and night, when you need someone to talk to.' We have gathered some ideas as to where we would write the lyrics. We were thinking of writing them on a brick wall or a plain black drop set in bright colours written in chalk.

Inspiration

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8awKpyqSQc

Booty call- Midnight Beast

We were inspired by the differant ways to present the lyrics in the song, for example the writing on the hands. We also liked the shots of the phones and the settings of the video. It looks very low budget and easy to do. We liked the quirky style throughout the music video and thought that it would work well within our video. The video in a way presents itself as a mickey take as it is very low budget, all in a house, the band members are dressed in random clothes and the props used are simple. But we beleive that this all works very well as a whole because it creates a fun vibe and relates to the song.

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.