Evaluation

The music video I made was designed to meet conventions and styles to suit my target audience. The video itself follows a narrative of a troubled love story, in which the main character wrestles with his emotions. This conforms to conventions set out by real media products, as many songs and videos are about love and romance; it is a key selling point in the market. Coming up with this idea took longer then expected. At first my group consisted of myself, Jimmi Cottam, Matt Jackson and Adam Birtwistle, as three of us could drive and had access to cars we decided to film a mock race to win a girls heart, drawing on the success of films like The Fast and the Furious. Unfortunately during the early stages of planning I lost the use of my car, but the race situation was still viable. Then Adam left Sixth Form and we were left with only one driver, so with some quick thinking we turned the race for love into a lovers' quarrel and it seemed to work very well; Adam did return on a couple of shoots to help out when he was free as he is a good friend and a quality camera man. Personally I feel these incidents were actually a blessing as it allowed us to get the filming done much faster than with having to film three different cars. We chose to feature cars within our video because we had only just passed our tests and were very excited to be driving, but also we thought that no one else would have them feature prominently within their videos, and within our class we were right. The idea of the emotional journey taken by the lead character works well with most of the video taking place in a car as the journey works on both the metaphorical level and the literal sense.

In our project we used a lot of media orientated technology to help create the final music video. Predominantly we used Final Cut Pro on the Macs, this was key to our editing. Opening up Final Cut, we then imported the track, so we knew how long the video was going to be, most the sound caught on film was muted, except for the opening scenes as we thought that the natural sounds added to the atmosphere of the suburban surroundings. Next we uploaded the video footage from the camera and tapes we used. Then we dragged the file to an open window in which the raw footage is kept in order to cycle through it and be able to cut bits out and edit them specifically. We started, as you do, from the beginning and took footage we wished to use in the opening scenes of the video. We did this by watching through the raw footage then leaving a marker at the start of the clip we wanted then making another maker at the end, then clicked and dragged the clip to the video reel and positioned it at the start. It was difficult swapping from PCs to Macs as some of the keyboard short cuts were different, such as print screen, and the lack of right click was frustrating, but after a while it became more natural.

When a fade was necessary, we clicked on the footage being used in the final video and selected insert from the top menu to insert a transition effect and then selected an appropriate fade, we used fades to show a transition of time, conforming to current media conventions. The opening scenes were edited with some fast cuts as we thought that this helped get a feel for the surroundings and the emotions between the characters. The track starts with feedback; it was decided to keep the feedback and have it start as the female leaves the car, the guitars start playing as soon as Matt turns the radio on, this made it look as though the music was diegetic, even though it is in fact non-diegetic. This conforms to contemporary media conventions as many music videos have the song playing from a radio or stereo within the video at the beginning of the video. The next shot involved a zooming out pan of the female walking down the alley, I felt that this would work well as it helped emphasize that she is leaving him.

The next edit involved layering several shots on top of each other to show that they've happened in quick succession without having to cut to each individual shot. The shot of the car moving off was done by mistake, as I had kept filming from a previous take off Matt pulling up. We decided to use it as it helped explain how Matt got from the cul-de-sac to the A road, and thus helped the flow of the narrative better, the shot of him leaving Nero Way fades to black and thus shows a long transition of time from him in Nero Way to coming onto the A46. We used the A46 as it is a long road and so there was plenty of room to film the characters journey. Furthermore there's a path that runs alongside the road which made it convenient to film a pan of the car as it drove by, also there are several overpasses which were perfect for getting a birds' eye view of the car as it made its journey, helping to keep the video interesting.

The next succession of cuts serves to show that Matt is travelling far and thinking a lot on his journey. The close up of the interior mirror in which Matt breaks the fourth wall was filmed in order to allow the audience to connect with the driver in an attempt to relate to his issues. This then fades to a shot of the female, this was designed to show that there has been some troubles between them and this is why Matt is driving off. This is then reinforced by the shot of Matt holding the picture of them being happy and a stereotypical couple, and then casting it aside in anger. There are a lot of cuts as the camera follows the car and the driver on their journey, this was to keep the audience interested in the journey itself and to show that there has been a substantial length of time passed in which the driver is wrestled with his emotions and troubled thoughts; this comes through with the shots of him moving up to top gear and the scene in which the chorus plays. This scene has a series of fast cuts, showing a close up of his foot on the accelerator as he presses it to speed up as the vocals kick in which was used to add dramatic effect. The use of the revometer being layered over the shot of the car as it speeds ahead helped to emphasize the speed the driver was travelling at and shows that he is dealing with his emotions through speed. This is the same shot of the revometer used in the Nero Way scene, so to make it slightly different we used the speed tool and slowed that shot down by 50%, this added further drama to the scene.

Throughout the journey the footage cuts back to the female as she is in tears over the problems she has had within the relationship, this was done to remind the audience of the narrative. The footage shot of the female was set in a dark room to mimic her feelings, however this did not work as well as we'd hoped because it turned out the room was too dark for the camera, but it was the only camera we could work with so we had to make do. This issue came through in the audience feedback from the group we showed it to and the comments from users of new media sites such as YouTube and Facebook. Within the next section of the song we encountered problems, as much as I had tried my best to learn from my mistakes from the previous media project, creating a website for a charity, we had not planned thoroughly enough and did not have enough footage to fully complete the video, so we had to reuse footage and edit it to try to make it look fresh with varying degrees of success, for example the use of the revometer twice worked well, however using the close up of the interior mirror did not have such a positive impact. Also to help get around this problem the song was edited to make it shorter, in the original track there were some lengthy solos. These were removed to help us fit the song on the amount of footage correctly.

The next scene was shot just outside the gates of RAF Swinderby, we used this area as we felt it would be quiet and secluded, it also had plenty of room for the car to drive in and space for different camera angles. It had everything we needed a concrete section for the car and grass in the background which, in the story, would lead to the lake. We spent a little longer filming this section then I thought, but we had a lot of space and time to play with when we recorded it. This comes through in the final edit as we a different array of shots and angles. This was easier to edit as we had more footage and practice on earlier scenes had helped. I wanted to make a still image zoom into his eyes, I took a screen grab but couldn't find the specific effect. The idea was to have a continuous zoom which would then fade out, as is typical in contemporary media. However Final Cut Pro did not meet these requirements and so I played with the editing tools; I copied and pasted the same still shot of Matt, breaking the fourth wall whilst leaning on his car, about five or six times. These were then placed on the timeline a second behind each other and placed on a higher part above the first shot.. Each one was zoomed in closer than the last and the clips were then faded down. A fade in then fade out was added to the shots which worked quite well, and received positive feedback from the audience. More layering was used to create a ghost effect of the driver walking to the lake with his "shadow" close behind a prelude to what may be.



These next sequences included more footage of the lead female character attempting to call her lover, with no success. We shot close ups and large close ups in order to convey her emotions more clearly to the audience. The reuse of the shot of Matt throwing the picture aside was added to emphasize to the audience that the relationship was over; to avoid confusion we made it black and white to show that it was a flash back and not occurring in the present. The next shots were of Matt looking out across the lake on an embankment; this shot is one of the longer ones and really hammers home the contemplattiveness of the character. This shot then fade to ripples within the lake, suggesting that the character may have committed suicide over the troubles he's had. We all agreed that this was in a similar vein to the final scene in the last episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, where the poignant scene is slowed down to the tempo of the music and the characters fates are left to the audiences imagination. We used a final pan across the lake with factories in the background as it showed that life goes on and it also helps keep the mystery of the characters fate.



The next stage was to input the opening texts and credits. The software Livetype, the font was a simple Ariel as there was no need for outlandish styles. We included the band name and song title within the video itself as that is the norm within music videos played on music channels. We also included the name of our production company; ShamRock Productions, as this has been the alias we've used throughout all our projects for media. We added the roman numerals of the year of completion as many television programmes do. A final rendering of the entire video and audio was done, then the project was saved repeatedly on separate drives and portable disks to make sure it was safe, and then we converted the video to a Quick Time Movie file type, so it can be played on most media players.



I feel we could have made the video better if we had used a better quality camera. If the school had access to better quality cameras we would have been able to produce a video of greater quality and clarity. This is particularly apparent in the darker scenes of our music video. Also if we had a steadicam or dolly we would have been able to get a better pan in the scenes focusing on the lead female. If I had taken greater head of the previous media project and planned even more then I had done then we would have had much more footage to play with. However several days of filming were lost because of the snow, which would ruin the continuity if we had filmed in it. Another issue was the lack of actors, if we had more willing participants then we would have been able to use Matt behind the camera and work in more characters within the narrative.



Using new media such as Youtube, Facebook and Blogger were very useful as it gave chance to get easy and usable feedback direct from our target audience. Furthermore the ease and freedom Blogger gave to write up my project was a great help; this combined with my laptop and dongle I could work on the project anywhere I could get a signal. Using Final Cut Pro was an obvious choice as it is far superior to other software like Windows Movie Maker which would have been far too basic for our needs. Live Type worked well in conjunction with Final Cut Pro, both were designed to play predominantly on Quick Time.

The comdination of the Poster and Digipak worked well with the music video; each product mirrors the emotions within the music video. The tones of the black and white included within each product relate to the two sides of the argument within the video. The screen grabs taken from the video and used within the digipak help link the two products, and will help boost the bands popularity, as if they recognise one element of the poduct they will relate it to another, is within contemporary media.

The previous project, done during AS, aside from helping to put more thought and effort into my planning it also gave me a stable working knowledge of programmes such as Photoshop. Last year I used Photoshop to edit and enhance pictures for use on my charity's website. So when it came to using Photoshop this time I already knew how to turn the image black and white, for example, using the image tool on the right hand side. Last years project also opened my mind to the use of We Media in order to present my coursework, I felt that it worked very well previously and so decided to use it again for this project. Furthermore the AS task made me realise the importance of audience feedback from my target audience, allowing me to greatly improve the project ro suit the target audience's desires. I had learned from the last project that Windows Movie Maker was not a high quality video editing piece of software, my experience editing a short charitable video for AS opened my eyes to the fact that I would need to rely more on the Macs Final Cut Pro as it is more technically advanced. Although I had past experience completing a website, I decided to do the Digipak for my ancillery task as I felt that creating a decent website would take too long and I would run out of time. Furthemore the concept of creating a digipak was a new and interesting prospect, which meant I had to put in some research into CD case designs.

Audience Feedback

Once we had finnished editing out video, we showed it to other members of our media class, as they matched with our target audience. Once they had watched it twice, we then handed them a simple questionnaire and asked them what they liked and what we could change and/or improve. Overall the feedback was generally positive, they appreaciated the narrative and the emotional issues the lead character was feeling. They felt that the camera work was well put together and that the scene in which the car was filmed from another cars point of view was particularly good. However the scenes were the lead female was the focus in the living room were too dark; unfortunately by this stage it was too late to re-shoot and edit the footage.

One piece of feedback recieved suggested we make more specific shots towards the characters emotion, so we used the close up of the lead character and then edited it so as to zoom into a still of the image and swap from negative to the original image. We felt that this drew attention to the characters eyes and therefore his emotions, and the contrast of colours of the negative helped to enhance the dark emotions he was feeling. This shot was, we felt, was best placed after the driver got out of the car as the focus would be on the driver more. One question raised was why we used the street Nero Way, well the lead character is contemplating suicide as is evident at the end of the music video, and Nero himself was forced to commit suicide to avoid assassination. We felt that this reference worked well and would be our "easter egg" for fans.

There was positive reviews about the end scene, the audience felt that once the fade to the ripples within the lake came into shot they instantly grasped what the lead character intended to do, they also felt that the pan across the lake with the factory background was useful in helping to show the end of the video; that no more was going to happen as this technique is often used within conventional media to end a film or music video, a sort of establishing shot to end the video.

Digi Pack

This is the digital copy of my design idea number one's front of the CD case. I used a picture of the entire band to emphasize to the audience who the band is, and the genre of music the single pertains to. This conforms to current media conventions as some artists use a picture of themselves as the dominant photo for their album cover. I feel the colours used suit the indie style and the melancholy nature of the song itself. Furthermore the text style appeals to a younger audience as it stands out more then say Times New Roman.

This is the back of the first design idea, as the CD only has the one single on it I had to break away from current media conventions and not include a track listing on the back. Because of this I wrote the promotional note "Includes the hit single Thanks For Nothing" to draw attention to the song. I used those two particular pictures as they compliment the emotions of heartache and the theme of escape featured in the video, and alluded to by the colour scheme. I have conformed to media rules and left the spines of the CD case simple, only having the name of the band and the name of the single down the spines.

For the second design idea I wanted to make the CD stand out, so I used a lighter colour scheme, but I feel that it still represents the harsh emotions portrayed within the music video; the orange and scratch theme does not look passive. Again I conformed to current media conventions by having the band name and song title on the front of teh CD case, and used a close up of the main character showing anger to compliment the design style of the CD case.

The back of the CD cas features a point of view shot of the main character driving. I decided to use a picture of the lead female, but make it slightly transparrent and have it shrunk into the corner of the main picture so as to show the auidence what the lead character is driving from but that she is still in his thoughts, hence the transparrancy. Once again I used promotional to emphasize the single instead of including a track listing.

The third and final design idea I created is alot more colourful and represents the nature of the band more then the single and the video. The stark colours make the CD stand out and are more suited to the target auidence then simple primary colours, as they stand out and make the CD case more individual; much like what teenagers look to do. Because of the emphasis on the band, I again used a picture of the entire band to help support this. Also I conformed to current media conventions and the only text on the front are depicting the band name and the song title.

I decided to adapt current media conventions for the back of this CD case. As there is only one song included on the CD, a track listing would be pointless, so following the theme of this design emphasazing the band, I wrote the band name across the entirety of the back and included the song title too. The text trails off the back and over to the spine of the CD case to make it appear as if the text goes on forever. Furthermore I positioned the text to try to make it look symmetrical and pleasing to the eye.

Production Diary

Once we had decided on the narrative for our video and had found locations we wished to film at, we set about recording the raw footage of our music video. Unfortunately Natalie was only able to spend one day filming with us, so we had to shoot all of her scenes in one day. Thanks to some forward planning and a skilled team, we did manage to shoot all of the scenes involving her in the one day. We did, however, have a minor issue with tracking around Natalie, as we did not have the appropriate equipment at school or at home. We had to think on our feet and, after several attempts with various materials, we used paper under the rubber grips of the tripod to allow us to track easily around Natalie.

The second day of filming was largely uneventful, we had managed to get all our schedualed filming done, with not issues. We had, however, encountered other problems for continuing the filming, because of the snow that occured around the time of filming we had to wait several weeks for it to clear so as to not ruin the continuity of the video, and for it to be safe for Matthew to drive. Eventually the snow did clear and we were able to continue filming.

The third and final day of filming was the hardest, the weather was windy, wet and cold (more so then usual). We were running up and down the A46 trying to get all the footage we need, shooting from different angles. We also had a hard time trying to shoot the footage without other cars ruining the continuity. Furthermore we had to re-shoot footage at the lake as the origional footage was not up to our standards.

Editing the footage had begun the friday after we had filmed on the first day. At first we spent most the time looking through the footage and chopping it up into sections that could be used for different parts of the video. We looked through several shots of the car entering the street, and eventually had some footage we liked the look of. The next day of editing was difficult as we spent a long time trying to sync the start of the guitar playing in the music with the driver turning the radio on in the car. Eventually we cracked it and are very proud of the opening scene.

The next stage of editing involved editing together pieces of A46 footage. We did this stage next as it involved a great part of the video and we wanted to know that we had got it right. We cross referenced the information on the storyboard and the treatment, to select the right shots from the A46. However, we did skip doing part of the middle of the motor scene to edit the video at the chorus.

The next stage of editing we linked the first half of the A46 footage to the chorus footage, this involved a shot of Matthew looking into the rear view mirror, this offers an emotion insight into the driver, as he breaks the fourth wall and the audience can see straight into his eyes. Next involved an extened shot of Natalie crying over the break up with.

It was from this point that we started to devieate from the storyboard a little more as we found we had some interesting footage and decided to incorporate it into the video. For example a close up of the driver as he leans on his car was edited using a succsession of zooming screen shots to create a darker, more emotional effect, thus emphasizing the characters pain. A later effect we used, was to use a cut from a point of view shot of the driver walking away, then we slowed the cut down and place it slightly behind the origional shot to create a ghost effect, alluding to the dirvers fate.

The rest of the editing involved adding the last cuts and fades to the video, once we had all the footage together and the final fade to black complete we used Live Type to create a Copyright logo and put our Production company name at the end of the video, then we stuck to conventions within the industry and added to the bottom left corner of the opening sequence the band name and title of the song, this was set to fade up to be read and then fade down. After this we selected the flash back scenes and turned them black and white so as to seperate them from the events happening in chronological order. Next we added darker filters to some shots as we felt they were too bright and opposed the underlying emotion of the video far too much.

Finally we converted the file from a Final Cut Pro file to a Quicktime file so as to make it easier to distribute for feedback. We gathered a focus group, consisting of members of our target audience and reguested that they watch the music video. Once they had watched it we gave them a questionnaire and asked them to give us some feedback.

Posters

This is the digital copy of my first promotional poster design idea. I decided to use simple yet bold colours, so as to not offend the eye. The wave pattern effect happened serendipitously, whilst playing the effects on Adobe Photoshop, the original background image changed to the wavy effect and I found it looked good and suited the emotional turbulence of the music video. The promotional qoute was designed to be humourous to suit the bands personality, but also their innocents to the music industry; being an unsigned band.












The second design idea was meant to highlight the emotion within the song itself. I felt the promotional qoute did this well. Furthermore the rain drop background and deep blue colours evoke images of sadness and tears, which compliments the music video well, I feel. The picture was used because it feature the lead character looking contemplative, in keeping with the theme of the video; black and white being used to add to this. The slight angle it's at is to make it look more appealing.










This final design idea was meant to be a subtle one. This subtly inkeeping with the indie genre, indie originally being an underground phenomenon. The promotional qoute, again is there for humourous effect, which is a trait many indie bands use for the advertising. The colours also are simple yet somber, emphasizing the tone of the video and the song.

Paper Designs For Posters

This is my first rough design for the bands promotional poster. It features dark shading to suit the emotional theme of the song, and a humorous tag line to attract the target audience to the band. The band name and song title take prominence at the top of the page to emphasize them. The screen grab takes focus in the centre as it shows insight into the video and compliments the emotional theme of the song.

The second rough design involves a raindrop design, this is because the rain has certain connotations to it, sorrow, pain and the blue colouring compliments this. These emotions are prevalent in the music video and within the song itself. Again the band name and the song title take priority at the top of the page, in a dark colouring to draw attention to it. The tag line is designed to emphasize the emotional levels within the song and the video.

The third rough design is a lot more simple. The colours used are pastel blues and white, this is to show the songs emotional challenges, the sadness of the break up combined with the fresh start of the journey; these being blurred together in the video and within this poster. Once again the band name and song title take prominence at the top of the page to draw attention to them and get the name recognised. The tag line is a humorous one, as this relates to the youth of the target audience.

Paper Designs For Digipak

This is the first rough design idea for my digipak CD case. It features deep, dark blues and blacks. This suits the mood of the song and the video. The band take prominance on the front of the CD case to help get them recognised. The spine of the CD case conforms to media conventions with the name of the band and song title running down it.

This is the second rough design for my digipak. For this design I was thinking of using a grainy or slashed effect to make the cover appear more striking. I will use oranges and whites in order to make the case stand out, also the orange will add to the grainy effect. A screen grab from the video focusing on the lead character, this picture shows the emotion that the character is going through. The back of the CD case features a fusion of two pictures from the video; a smaller transparent picture of the lead female crying will be placed over the main picture of a point of view shot of the driver driving, this is to show that on his journey the girl is still in his thoughts.

The final rough design again includes, on the front of the CD case, a picture of the entire band, this is to establish the look and style of the band. The colours are light blues and purples, these represent the band more then the song or the music video. For the back of the CD case, seeing as there is only one song on the CD, I repeated the band name and song title over the back of the case, this reinforces the band and it also appears quite contemporary and original rather then use a track listing or pictures of the band.