Evaluation and Feedback

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

I researched music videos already created by my artist before planning and creating my own video. In my own video I conformed to conventions of already existing media products and videos already out there. The music video for Ellie Goulding's song The Writer was a big inspiration for my music video.

For starters, like many music videos I tried to portray a narrative with a storyline. This however is not a common theme in Ellie Goulding's other videos where she usually chooses a simple narrative without much storyline. This involved cutting to and from two separate narratives.

The narrative I was trying to portray was one of teenage romance - one that is often used in the pop genre.

In my music video I have tried to use shot types that are common in the videos already used by Ellie Goulding in order to conform to conventions of real media products. Above is an example of use of extreme close up. The picture on the left is an extreme close up used in my music video and the picture on the right is one used in the video for "Your Song" by Ellie Goulding.

I also used establishing shots of my location - similar to those used in the video for "Your Song" by Ellie Goulding. This goes with the relaxed tone of the video.

Above is an example of an extreme long shot I used in my video. Inspiration was taken from the video for "The Writer" a video already used by Ellie Goulding. The extreme long shot gives the feeling of loneliness which is the feeling I was trying to portray in my narrative. In this shot is clear that both the people who made the video for Ellie Goulding and myself have used to the rule of thirds to make the character more noticeable for the audience

These are two screen shots of mid shots taken from both my music video and the video for "The Writer". Again, in the shot it is evident that the rules of thirds have been applied.

You can also see from the video for The Writer that we have used similar costume for our video. They both are clothes that the target audience can relate to and will even wear themselves.

I tried to conform to real media products as much as possible instead of challenging them to create a final product that would attract our target audience.

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

My promotional package included my video, digipak and advert. I attempted to make the package coherent by using elements of the mise-en-scene like costume, setting and use of colour to create coherence and connection between all three.

I researched other promotional packages in the same genre before I made my own including the one for Katy Perry’s album “One Of The Boys”.

Here is her CD/Digipak album cover:

And here is the advert created for the album.

Although the advert and CD cover for this album have different pictures of her on and she is wearing different clothes, the garden setting is evidently the same. As well as the use of similar props which means they both show the same 1950s theme. They have also used the same fonts and colour scheme and all of this creates cohesion and familiarity between the package.

As shown on the advert, the lead single from this album is the track "I Kissed A Girl". The coherence of the promotional material is evident from the use of pink and retro styling links to the props and design on both of the other parts of the promotional package.

Now here is the promotional package that I created for my video.

This is my digipak cover:

This is the advert I created for the digipak:

To make both my ancillary texts (digipak and advert) part of a coherent package, when creating them I made sure I used the same font, colour scheme, costume and location all of which created a strong link between both media texts.

To find out whether or not my planning had been effective, as part of the online survey I set up to get feedback I asked this question:

All ten of the ten people who answered felt that my digipak and advert were related which suggests that I was successful in creating a coherent package.

Here are some screen shots from the main product (video part) of my promotional package. Similar to that of Katy Perry, the coherence of the promotional material is evident. This is from the use the same costume and setting/location on both of the other parts of the promotional package.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I used Facebook and other social networking sites to obtain feedback for my video. This will present an accurate reflection of the artist’s audience as after a lot of thorough research, I suggested that the target audience for the artist would be mainly females aged between 15 and 44 and this is the main age group for the use of social networking sites. I uploaded my video to YouTube and then posted it on my Facebook wall for everyone to see.

I also created an online survey to obtain feedback:

From the questionnaire I can tell that I was answered by my target audience and this means that I have succeeding in appealing to the audience I was aiming at. All 5 people said that my promotional package is connected. The most popular thing that related my promotional package was colour scheme although costume, location and fonts were all popular answers.

After analysing my research from my target audience I decided that if I were to carry out this project again I would do some things differently.

Firstly I would use more creative camera skills in the final video product for example I would include a pull focus.

I would also include a lot more camera shots including a lot more extreme close ups of the artists face and maybe her feet when she is walking along.

I would also make the narrative of my video clearer as this is something that was noted by one person leaving feedback. Perhaps I would include shots relating exactly to the lyrics of the song and in a different location or maybe add a sub story.

I feel that if I had more experience at filming and more time to film and plan then I could have incorporated all of these ideas and made my film even better.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages of all your products?

A lot of my coursework is based online. Similar to last year’s coursework I have posted all of my coursework onto the online blog service, Blogger. This year I have learned how to add videos both straight to blogger and embedded via YouTube which I did not do last year. I encountered some difficulties with uploading for example sometimes the system refuses to save the layout of my individual blogs and mashes it all up together. However, over all Blogger has been okay to use in conjunction with my coursework.

I also used the internet for a lot of the research and planning stages of all of my products. I used social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to gather information on target audience as well as the NRS online to get statistics for target audience research.

I used the MacBook software iMovie to create my pitch for the project. I had never used this software before so I learned how to use it from scratch and through a lot of trial and error. I recorded my voice over using my iPhone and processed this onto iMovie and then added the slides from my pitch and some additional photographs to make the pitch more effective. I then uploaded the final pitch to YouTube where I embedded it to my blog.

I used a digital camera that was my own when taking photographs for my digipak and advert. As the camera was my own I already had experience using it and this enabled me to get the perfect shots I wanted for my ancillary products.

I also used scanners to upload the hand drawn parts of my coursework such as my flat plans and initial ideas.

The main component used to create my digipak and advert was Adobe Photoshop. I had already developed skills in Photoshop from my previous AS coursework when I created my magazine. Photoshop enabled me to create a more professional style to my advert and digipak. It also enabled me to layer on fonts from www.dafont.com and experiment with different brushes and edit the colouring and contrast of my photos. I also used the cut, crop and transform tools to arrange my photos into the positions I wanted them and to cut out any unwanted bits. All of this enabled me to chose freely and bring the ideas I originally planned by hand on paper together and express my creativity.

When filming the actual video I used video cameras which I had never used before. After initial practice I became more confident with the cameras and this led me to me being able to get the ideas I had planned on my storyboard to life. After we had shot the film, we had to capture the footage to the MacBook Pro we had chosen to do our project on. To do this we connected the camera we had used to the computer using a firewire cable. Then we played the footage back and at the same used Timecode to transfer it onto the computer where we saved it and filed it in a logical place ready for editing.

To edit our footage, I used the Mac editing software Final Cut Pro. I learned to place the soundtrack on the timeline and then remove the background sound from the footage we had shot. We were advised that the editing process should have three clear stages (assembly edit, rough edit and the final edit). I created an editing schedule to help this go to plan:

The assembly edit was where I selected the best shots that I wanted to incorporate into my video and placed them on the time line. This is simply to let me see what I have filmed and see how the film will sequence out.

To create the rough draft I started to put each clip in order and start to sync them and cut them in time with the soundtrack I had placed on the timeline earlier.

For the final cut, I just made sure I was happy with the final product and that everything was edited as smoothly as possible. I then saved the video in Quicktime format and transported it to memory stick.

I uploaded my final video to YouTube. To do this I had to have an account which fortunately I already had. I had already experienced uploading videos to YouTube before which helped me a lot. It took a long time to upload but when it had finished and finished processing I embedded the video to my blog.

Finished Video

Here is a the link to the video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eu9xgimtHM&feature=channel_video_title

Creative Camera Use

When we were practicing with the cameras we undertook several exercises to help us gain new skills.

I learned about auto/manual settings. Autosettings should be used when taking simple shots or amateur films but if you are filming something such as a music video manual settings would be better because this way you can have control over things such as the exposure and focus.

We also learned about the white balance and setting it so that the camera knows what do in different lighting conditions for example inside and outside. Not using the correct white balance would cause inconsistencies in the colours throughout the footage we captured.

Another thing we experimented with is adjusting the focus of the camera.

To adjust the focus you need to set the camera to manual focus. In the shot above we have practiced with a narrow depth of field.

This shot was an attempt at a focus pull where the background was in focus and we tried to change it to the foreground in focus.

When filming our video we tried to get the narrow depth of field by putting the background out of focus to put the main attention on the artist.

We also practiced with different shot types for example, long shots, mid shots, close ups and extreme close ups. As well as different camera movements such as tracking shots and zooms in and out.

Rejected Footage

Not all of the footage we captured was good enough to use in our final product. These are some examples of our unused footage and comments on why they were not used in our final product.

This footage was rejected because we decided it wouldn't fit with the narrative we had planned.

This footage was interupted by members of the public walking their dogs whilst we were filming which made it useless.

This particular piece of footage was rejected as our actors were messing around.

This is one of the first takes of a scene we did, we were unhappy with this and so we shot it again and used the second take.

This footage was rejected because our actor was laughing.

This footage was rejected because she got too close to the camera.

This was rejected as our actor wasn't ready when we started to film as she was trying to play the song so she could sing along.