Hello group 31
Those of you who who made the draft deadline will find comments from Jo. Please click on the '1 comments' link at the end of the blog entries to see your feedback.
Remember the final deadline is Friday!
Sunday, 16 January 2011
Friday, 14 January 2011
Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our music video both uses and challenges forms and conventions of the RnB genre. One of the most obvious and most typical conventions of RnB is the way women are portrayed, whether they are the main artist, backup dancer, backup singer etc. They all come across as being the same. In the RnB genre the chances of making a video with no site of a female in it, are close to none. This genre is well known for its close up, slow motion shots focusing on the female body or even certain body parts. Also the male artist and female are represented very differently in our video, the lead female singer is filmed and shot as being something attractive to look at, focused on by showing the camera a strong feminine side and parts of the body which strongly come across as being sexual. The male rapper is dressed very differently in not so bright coloured clothes which cover up large amounts of the body. In regards to the performance, he dominates the screen and comes across clear with his lyrics through body language and hand jesters which puts most of the focus on him. These are ways in which males and females are clearly shown differently in the same video regardless of their importance in in the video.
As you can see, this video has a numerous amount of shots focusing on females. The clothing used in the video brings out a sexual meaning in the way the ladies should be viewed. There are some slow motion tracking and panning shots which focus only on certain parts of the female body, we have used this idea and concept but in doing so have left out the lack of clothing theme and obviously are main artist is a female so our video differs in many ways in comparison to this one by Dizzee Rascal.
Typical of a male performer in RnB and also in Rap and Hip Hop genres, a must do is to give a good performance for the camera and audience. The screen shot of Ludacris shows a great example of this, he is clearly performing strongly in front of the camera, using hand jesters as he does so again typical from the genre. Showing him placed in front of the others who re located in the background but still visible, is saying not to forget about them but at the current moment in time all the attention should be on me. Now looking at a screen shot from our video, it is clear to see how the "All I Do Is Win" video influenced us to keep to and interpretate the styles conventions of our genre. Again the male performer is at the front (when it's his time in the song) again using his hands to maximize his performance and the attention giving to and trying to be attained from him.
Here you see how the "American Boy' video has influenced us into using certain shots similar to ones seen in it. A medium shot of Estelles' body figure is captured with a contrasting background which really exaggerates her body and causes her to stand out. In our video we have a shot of Stephanie Jackson focusing on her body and again similar to the "American Boy" video using a contrasting background which powerfully causes the artist to draw maximum attention from viewers. This also brings out a sex appeal factor to the artists aura, revealing her sexiness to viewers, appealing mostly to the male audience and a role model figure to the females.
Another feature typical from our genre is the quick editing and camera shots. Our video focuses on using close ups and medium mid shots, long shots are used rarely and only to introduce a new setting. Looking at other videos of the same genre you will see this is a common trend used through out music. Another factor is the quick cuts used from shot to shot, this is most strongly shown when our Male artist performance takes place. The quick cuts of the artist from the different locations worked very well for the overall video, and the 'in time with the beat' cuts allow the video to follow the conventions of its genre.
How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipaks and advertisement)?
I have purposely mad my ancillary products to resemble the video and clearly show the link between the two.
This screen shot from the video shows how clearly the image can be related back to that scene in the video. This is a strong factor when it comes to relating to the audience. A good link between music video and ancillary products is needed for instant recognition, this is the strongest way to reach out and appeal to a wide audience.
There is also a strong visible link between the Digipak and Advertisement again allowing the audience to recognise the artist and become familiar with her and her work. I have used the same image from the cover of the digipak as the main image for my advertisement, using the same colour scheme as the digipak as well as the same patterns and shapes. A strong element i have used is keeping the font consistent through out my ancillary products, as you can see i have used the same font for the title of the album "Rumours" on the front cover of the digipak, the back cover and on the advertisement. Doing this adds to the effect of having the same image repeated, instant recognition that will get the artist and thier movements known.
Mary J Blige's album "The Breakthrough" has a simple image of her with an effect over it, and a distinctive font which states her name, album title and logo. This is plain and instantly recognisable especially due to the face on picture of her which is enlarged. On the poster advertisement of her album the same image has been used, with the same effect and same font stating the same as in the album cover. To make it differ from the album cover other pictures of her have been added overlapping each other, again keeping to the effect of the Digipak. The link between the two can be related to straight away and this will help to reach out to the widest audience available.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
The actual making of our video consisted of us using state of the art equipment such as a JVC 15 ProHD camera with two 2GB memory cards, a Panasonic digital camera with a 1GB memory card, Sony Mini-speaker, Camera lighting equipment and JVC tripod. The same camera, digital camera and tripod were used last year by the group so we had no trouble with these pieces of equipment. The speaker and lighting though, were new to us but we were properly informed on how to get the best results from using them in an efficient way.
The construction stages, which included the making of the Digipak and Advertisement and the editing and putting together of our final video. Various different media technologies played parts in this stage such as Final Cut Pro which was used to make our music video. This was our second year using the program so we were familiar with it although we had to use features of the software and skills we had not used before so there was still a slight challenge. A new skill we had to learn and apply was lip syncing. When a clip is laid down on the time line along with the audio, the movement of the video will not be in sync with the audio. To make sure it is we had to pick out a part of the clip that stood out, so for example the artist singing the word "American", at the beginning of the word wherever that position is on the clip we mark it, go to the audio and find that same part of the song and mark the audio also. When the clip is dropped on top of the audio the two marked points are significantly easy to align, once this is done the audio from the video clip is muted and that whole section is played back and it should be in perfect lip sync.
For the production of my ancillary products i had trouble which package to use out of Photoshop and Quark Express. I initially started by using Quark express, by doing it this way i would firstly have to edit a picture/image in Photoshop before putting it onto the Digipak template on Quark. A problem I had with this was when the picture was put into Quark it wasn't the size of the panel and when I attempted to re size it the picture became stretched and pixelated. From this i thought to try Photoshop as it would be easier as the picture wouldn't have to be transported anywhere and there was also a template in Photoshop. In the end I used Photoshop to complete my Digipak and Advertisement, it was much easier plus Photoshop allowed me to use a lot more effects colours, shapes and images, and my end products were of a good quality.
The Internet was also an important tool that helped me to complete most of the tasks. Google most of all by providing me images i have used and also giving me good websites that have helped when I've run searches. Another big help from the Internet has been YouTube, i have used this countless times to look at videos, embed them into my blogs or even just leave the link but using YouTube strengthens the work by providing a visual to refer to which will explain things a lot better than a written explanation.
Blogger has been the most used and important piece of technology used through out the project, even up to now the evaluation is being done on blogger. Blogger has been used to document are progress and any rising matters that have come up whilst doing the project. There was also a checklist of blogs which had to be done, they were broken down into different types of blogs like, individual entries, group entries and entries that can be in the form of pictures, links, videos etc. all planning and research has been blogged on blogger showing evidence of the work. Blogger basically holds all the work which has been done including the final products, blogging tasks, extra tasks, and other matters which have arisen and is presented in a interesting and interactive way. What have you learned from your audience feedback? Audience Member 1: "I really liked the intro establishing shots, the choice of location was really good, and I thought the performance was well done." Audience Member 2: "The editing was sick! Especially the part when the male artist performs, the cuts were in time with the beat it worked really well, and switching between the different locations was smart, but there were problems with the lighting at some points in the video"
Mary J Blige's album "The Breakthrough" has a simple image of her with an effect over it, and a distinctive font which states her name, album title and logo. This is plain and instantly recognisable especially due to the face on picture of her which is enlarged. On the poster advertisement of her album the same image has been used, with the same effect and same font stating the same as in the album cover. To make it differ from the album cover other pictures of her have been added overlapping each other, again keeping to the effect of the Digipak. The link between the two can be related to straight away and this will help to reach out to the widest audience available.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
The actual making of our video consisted of us using state of the art equipment such as a JVC 15 ProHD camera with two 2GB memory cards, a Panasonic digital camera with a 1GB memory card, Sony Mini-speaker, Camera lighting equipment and JVC tripod. The same camera, digital camera and tripod were used last year by the group so we had no trouble with these pieces of equipment. The speaker and lighting though, were new to us but we were properly informed on how to get the best results from using them in an efficient way.
The construction stages, which included the making of the Digipak and Advertisement and the editing and putting together of our final video. Various different media technologies played parts in this stage such as Final Cut Pro which was used to make our music video. This was our second year using the program so we were familiar with it although we had to use features of the software and skills we had not used before so there was still a slight challenge. A new skill we had to learn and apply was lip syncing. When a clip is laid down on the time line along with the audio, the movement of the video will not be in sync with the audio. To make sure it is we had to pick out a part of the clip that stood out, so for example the artist singing the word "American", at the beginning of the word wherever that position is on the clip we mark it, go to the audio and find that same part of the song and mark the audio also. When the clip is dropped on top of the audio the two marked points are significantly easy to align, once this is done the audio from the video clip is muted and that whole section is played back and it should be in perfect lip sync.
For the production of my ancillary products i had trouble which package to use out of Photoshop and Quark Express. I initially started by using Quark express, by doing it this way i would firstly have to edit a picture/image in Photoshop before putting it onto the Digipak template on Quark. A problem I had with this was when the picture was put into Quark it wasn't the size of the panel and when I attempted to re size it the picture became stretched and pixelated. From this i thought to try Photoshop as it would be easier as the picture wouldn't have to be transported anywhere and there was also a template in Photoshop. In the end I used Photoshop to complete my Digipak and Advertisement, it was much easier plus Photoshop allowed me to use a lot more effects colours, shapes and images, and my end products were of a good quality.
The Internet was also an important tool that helped me to complete most of the tasks. Google most of all by providing me images i have used and also giving me good websites that have helped when I've run searches. Another big help from the Internet has been YouTube, i have used this countless times to look at videos, embed them into my blogs or even just leave the link but using YouTube strengthens the work by providing a visual to refer to which will explain things a lot better than a written explanation.
Blogger has been the most used and important piece of technology used through out the project, even up to now the evaluation is being done on blogger. Blogger has been used to document are progress and any rising matters that have come up whilst doing the project. There was also a checklist of blogs which had to be done, they were broken down into different types of blogs like, individual entries, group entries and entries that can be in the form of pictures, links, videos etc. all planning and research has been blogged on blogger showing evidence of the work. Blogger basically holds all the work which has been done including the final products, blogging tasks, extra tasks, and other matters which have arisen and is presented in a interesting and interactive way. What have you learned from your audience feedback? Audience Member 1: "I really liked the intro establishing shots, the choice of location was really good, and I thought the performance was well done." Audience Member 2: "The editing was sick! Especially the part when the male artist performs, the cuts were in time with the beat it worked really well, and switching between the different locations was smart, but there were problems with the lighting at some points in the video"
This screen shot from our video is an example of when an audience member commented on our poor lighting. The shot was well lit in the previous seconds and then dramatically changed to this, it didn't make the whole video disappointing but is a let down to the build up of the end of it.
We only shot this scene once, so there was no second or back up clip we could use instead, because it was only a couple of seconds long we thought we could get away with it but all the veiwers acknowledged it and commented on it.
From this we have learned not to risk filming at all if the lighting is poor, as it is too much of a risk, and also to film a sequence various times. That point is very important as it reduces the chances of the final video having a small part like ours where the lighting does it no justice whatsoever.
Evaluation 4
What Have You Learned From Audience Feedback?
Comment 1: 'The location of your video was good it really suits your genre however in some shots we couldn't see the artist'
This comment made me think next time i would think over locations and the time we film them extra carefully because the way you vision shots in your head might not always be the way you want.
'However some of the lighting was spot'
Comment 2: 'The performance of the female artist was however when she's dancing around the lamp post its dying for a close up instead there was just on long shot without a cut'
To this fault the best thing to do would be to film a close up for every shot just in case that happens again.
If i was to do this video again I would choose more than two locations to film so therefor there would be diversity in the cuts and give us variety.
Comment 1: 'The location of your video was good it really suits your genre however in some shots we couldn't see the artist'
Comment 2: 'The performance of the female artist was however when she's dancing around the lamp post its dying for a close up instead there was just on long shot without a cut'
To this fault the best thing to do would be to film a close up for every shot just in case that happens again.
If i was to do this video again I would choose more than two locations to film so therefor there would be diversity in the cuts and give us variety.
Evaluation 3
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research and planning and evaluation stages?
When creating our music videos we used state of the art video cameras and digital cameras,packed with upto 8gb memory cards.
Video cameras used for filming and digital camera used for taking pictures. we used a range of shots like close ups, medium shots tracking, panning etc. we took pictures during filming to help us decide what else we would shoot and where are location would be next.
We used a light that was linked on top of the video camera because there was a scene in our video where the male artist was rapping and the background was dark therefor we would be unable to see him, we no this because we tried to film without the light and was an epic fail.
Internet was used as a main device for research because we had access to various websites such as wikipedia, youtube and google.
We used photoshop to create our album digipaks, i found this programme hard to use because its my first time using such advanced software.
Evaluation 2
How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product Ancillary Text?
A successful music video will make clear visual links between it and its ancillary products (Digipak and the Advertisement).
This the cover of the single video phone by Beyonce and a screenshot of the video,in both images the colour gold strikes up meaning it is a base colour and there are similarities between the screen shot and single cover.
A successful music video will make clear visual links between it and its ancillary products (Digipak and the Advertisement).
This the cover of the single video phone by Beyonce and a screenshot of the video,in both images the colour gold strikes up meaning it is a base colour and there are similarities between the screen shot and single cover.
The clear link between my video and ancillary product is the city backdrop in my video we chose to film in london city because of the beautiful scenery and lighting. You can see our artist album cover which is a still image from the hit single 'American Boy', and we see another still from the video this is another place we decided to film London Transport was significant to the song because she talks about going away America however it can be a metaphor for just change and difference.
This is the advertisement of Rihanna's single Hard ft Young Jeezy and a still image from the video between the you can see the similarities of her costume. Also the word hard is almost a sexual induendo however the word hard you would personify as a man going hard in something. i feel she uses her sexual beauty as a power to embrace fame.
Evaluation 1
In What Ways Does Your Media Product use, develope ideas or challenge forms annd conventions of real media products?
Evaluation
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Music Video
Our music video includes influences from other videos of the same genre. We were influenced by the original video for the 'American Boy' and 'No Substitute Love' both by Estelle and 'Not Afraid' by Eminem. The use of camera work in american boy gave us ideas as we were planning our shots, as the screen shots below show, we have some shots that are either set or shot similar for example we see Kanye West whispering to Estelle's ear, this show the relation between the two artist and reflects their flirtatious side and we were influenced by this to reflect the same message to the audience for our video. Estelle's video to no substitute highlights the style of women within the genre of r&b and from this video we were influenced by the shot of the shoes which is a very important symbol to indicate the female artist. The shot of Josh (male singer) while singing to the camera throughout his part in the song, is set very similar to the video of 'not afraid', as Eminem sings directly to the camera with body movements, usually uses his hands to illustrate his feelings and meaning of the song, this is used within our video to give the audience a clear view of the male singers mood, feeling and also his hand movements used to illustrate the meaning of his lyrics.
The screen shots are taken from videos that we were influenced by and linked with our music video.
Estelle - No Substitute Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLb1Iwkt2R0&ob=av2el
Eminem - Not Afraid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5-yKhDd64s
Digipak and advertisement
Throughout my planning process for my digipak and advertisement I had a chance to look at variety of different examples and all included basic information that should be included within a product, such as the artist and album name, production company, copyright and barcode. I was mainly influenced by Rihanna's digipak and advertisement for 'Rated R'. The layout and style of the cover and advert was suitable for its genre. The artist was shot clearly and was making direct eye contact with the viewers. The link between the two products (digipak and advertisement) included the same image which set a clear link and I believe it was successful overall.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product
(video) and ancillary texts (digipak and advertisement)?
I believe the combination of my main product and ancillary text makes clear visual links and fits well with our music video. The main reason for this is that our artist in the video is clearly viewed on the products that I have created so therefore the audience can create a visual link within all. The weak link between my products and the music video is the style as the video is created in a r&b style but the products highlights a different style, but this can be referred as artist is working within a different style but the album includes a song in r&b.
Shots of our main artist from the video shows clear link to the images I have used
3. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Media technologies allowed us to construct our research planning and evaluation stages, we used different media technologies in producing different tasks such the main product (music video) and ancillary texts (digipak and advertisement) and the following information and videos will show what technologies I have used and how.
Equipment
Research Click onto the stills to enlarge
Blogger
Final Cut Pro
Final Cut Pro is a video editing program. The software allows users to log and capture video onto hard drive, where it can be edited, processed and output to wide variety of formats. Before using this program to create our video clip we had short tutorial on lip synch and used Final Cut Pro to do this. This has allowed us to indicate many features within this program to edit clips. Such as creating bass tracks and including markers to the beat to match the lip movements to the song and layering each clip that was shot in different angles and cut each clip using razor blade to create a pattern within all shots, (this was particularly used in our final video whilst josh is singing to the camera and the shots from two different locations are seen). Including transition tool at the beginning of our video has made it look very realistic as the transitions were added to the rhythm of the song. Overall Final Cut pro has allowed us to use may tools to bring together all our clips from the filming process and produce a final outcome. Along the side of an digital storyboard we also produced animatic storyboard and this is done by using Final Cut Pro.
imovie
Throughout my evaluation, I have produced some short videos. These are created using imovie which is a program that is used on imac's. This was a useful program to create short videos in short time and I believe it was very useful and made my work look very interesting with the use of text, transitions, music and voice over.
4. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback (First reaction after the preview in cinema)
The feedbacks we have show we had strengths and weaknesses to our video. I believe one of the main reasons that our video was successful because it was suitable for its genre as mis-en-scene was very appropriate and also performances of the two artists was very realistic as the connection between them were good. The comments about the light was very on spot as we had a problem with a screen that was effecting the exposure of our shots whilst filming in Piccadilly and I believe we should of included more close-up or mid shots of the female artist whilst performing as we mostly see the artists performing to the camera in a r&b music video.
Strengths
- Mise-en-scene and locations linked well with the lyrics
- Artists emphasised their roles
- Singing was in synch
- Match cuts worked well
- Editing overall was suitable for the genre
Improvements
- Lighting - this could be improved as some shots was really dark and change of light at the background was effecting the exposure
- Shots - more close up or mid shots could of been used
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Evaluation 4
Statistics
Here is a shot of the ratings for our music video. For a more clear viewing please click on the link below.
Link to Vimeo - ]http://www.vimeo.com/17557761
Our final music video
Audience feedback
Audience feedback allows you to understand what people think about your music video. We had both positive and negative feedback which allowed us to view our strengths and weaknesses. Being able to understand the strengths and weaknesses will help us in our future projects. Many people really liked our location shots, we had a variety of shots in Piccadilly and Tower bridge we chose to film in these locations because they are iconic places that represents London and ideally the song American Boy includes lyrics about London. So therefore we thought it would be conventional to use iconic location shots. We also had a lot of feedback about the costumes we used. For example the audience thought the costume really fitted in with the genre of our music. The performance the two artist displayed was believable and the connection between them was good. We tried to make sure that the two artist were able to have a bond, creating a good bond between them was actually really easy because they happened to get along very well. We were also praised on our editing because the audience thought the editing was up to beat. Having the editing up to beat is important because it keeps the audience in focus with the video. We were told that the camera shots and editing emphasized the narrative. On the other hand one of our weaknesses was our lighting, the audience thought in some shots the lighting could of been brighter. I also do partially agree with this point however because we shot our video during the night we had no natural lighting to reinforce the cameras lighting. Another one our weak point was with our camera shot. For example there was a shot in the video where the female artist was dancing around a pole in Piccadilly. We only used a long shot and a medium shot however the audience felt that having a close up would allow the audience to have a better viewing of the artist. Overall all this feedback really help me understand our strengths and weaknesses therefore in our future projects i will consider these feedback's.
Evaluation 3
There were many aspects of the media technology that helped us achieve all the work that we have produced for this a2 media course.
Use of internet
Vimeo
At some point we had to use vimeo to look at previous A2 students work. This allowed us to get a clear understanding of what we could and should be achieving.
Muzo.Tv
There were countless times when we had trouble on being able to embed videos from You tube so eventually we found a site called Muzo.Tv. This site allowed me to embed every video that i wanted to upload on to blogger. Overall i thought it was very handy and easy to use.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia gives you all the information you need, For example when i needed to track down information about my artist and the music video it was so simple. Wiki provides you with all the important information that is needed. I found it very helpful when i was searching about the genre and background of the artist.
Google
Google is a very common site in fact many people use Google as their internet homepage. This site is basically like a door to information, news, images, videos, maps and many more things. I would have to say Google was one of the most helpful sites that i have used during this course.
Blogger
Blogger
Blogger is where we gather all our information and share it with others. Blogger has allowed us to express our work. Blogger is very useful to share information, it allowed us to present our work in creative ways. For example we are able to use images and videos to illustrate our work which makes the work more interesting.
You Tube
You Tube is a video sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005. You Tube also allows to share videos and watch videos. This site was particularly helpful because it allowed us to search for different types of music videos from different type of genres. The down side for me was that i found it annoying not being able to embed certain videos.
During our filming we used many technical equipments. For example We used a recording camera to record shots for our music video, We also used lights that we were able to attach on top of the camera, because our filming took place at night the additional camera really helped us out. We also used a mini loudspeaker which allowed us to sing in sync with the song. The tripod supported the camera for our still shots. Lastly we used a still camera to capture images for our storyboard, location shots and images for our digipak and advertisements.
The Mac has provided us with many programs that helped us with producing our work. For example it had programs such as photo shop which i personally used to create my advertisement and digipak. It also includes programs like Final Cut Pro where we did all our editing.
We were given three memory cards. Two for the recording camera and one for the still camera. We used these memory cards to safely keep all our shots and images.
The still camera was very handy. We were able to take images at all times. whilst filming, editing and during practice.
The hard drive allowed us to safely store all our work. Every shot and image that we took we eventually saved it in our hard drive. Every group was given their own hard drive with their own group number displayed on it.
The card reader allowed us to connect our memory card to the Mac.
Photoshop
Here are some screen shots from my ancillary products. I used photoshop to create my digipak and advertisement. This program provides you with tools which allows you to make your work very interesting.
This tool here shows you your history of layers, so if some point you want to turn back and delete something this tool will allow you to do so.
Photoshop
Here are some screen shots from my ancillary products. I used photoshop to create my digipak and advertisement. This program provides you with tools which allows you to make your work very interesting.
To create this video i used a program called iMovie. This is a program on the Mac, it is very useful when creating small clips. In this clip i have illustrated shots from our filming process. And to take these shots we used the still camera. so overall the media technology really allows you to produce interesting and good work.
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