Graphs of audience feedback results

As you can see from the graph, the majority of feedback was positive and we succeeded in including a variety of shots, please our audience (who were of the desired demographic) and create a music video that was logical in its narrative.
For question 3, the majority answered "No" meaning that the balance of narrative and performance was just right. For more comments, refer to the second results post.

Audience feedback

text from the evaluation

most of the text in my evaluation was the questions :

1)in what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products

2) how effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

3)what have you learned from your audience feedback?

4)how did you use media technologies in the construction, research planning and evaluation stages?

the other text near the beginning of the video was the lyrics of the song.

and the other text was a summary of the points which i made when talking about the audience feed back.

as i said in my earlier post i will try and rectified the problem with the bad picture problem asap

Evaluation

this is the evaluation I made. I added the effects using adobe after effects. however when I rendered the video from after effects the quality of the picture drastically lowered making the text virtually unreadable, however I will put the text up in separate following posts, and I am seeking advice on how to restore the picture quality to full quality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hAFXVIv5Ms

final poster design

after lots of different drafts we finally decided on the final look of the poster

further poster production

we wanted to link the poster more with the digipack so all 3 products would link better. so we began to develop posters with the quartered colour scheme

finished music video

yeah its all done, finished and rendered have a look

poster plan

we wanted to keep the poster as simple as possible as well as making it stand out, we also wanted to link the poster to the music video. we decided to draw a cartoon collage of things from the music video. then we would scan the image into the computer and using photoshop colour it in.

digipack inside

we started to come up with some ideas for the inside. we thought it would be nice to have the lyrics on one side and on the other we could have photos from behind the scenes.

final digipack cover

after a lot of development we had the cover of the digipack finished.

digipack production

we decided to link the poster with the digipack by using the same quartered colour scheme. so we used photoshop to make some early drafts

Digipack photo shoot

we had a photo shoot to get the photos for the digipack, we took the photos on a normal digital stills camera.

digipack idea

the initial idea for our digipack was to have a picture of each band member to be doing a normal every day activity but to look shocked like they have been caught doing something horrific, but then on the back cover have them in a similar pose still looking shocked but holding their instrument.

digipack research

we began to start researching digipacks to see what sort of things were put into them and what sort of art was on them.

digital grading

once we had finished editing the film we went through each clip slightly changing the colours, saturation, brightness, contrast and gamma to try and get the best picture and making the video have a unique style, we tried to get strong shadows and vivid colours .

lip syncing

it was quite difficult to get the words in the song to match the lip miming on screen. but by singing the song out loud while filming, and also having split the song in two for the elongated pause it was easier to do.

Music editing

because we wanted to elongate the natural pause in the song to add the section where the band and narrative interact we had to cut the song into two sections. this way we could have the pause as long as we needed

adding the green screen

once we had put all the footage in the correct order we had to add the back ground to the green screen shots. however because the location shots we wanted to use looked terrible and parts of the band and their instruments started to disappear we had to think of something else to put in the background. we decide a good idea would be to put a picture of the poster in the background, this way it would link to the poster.

Subsidiary tasks

even though we were still deep in the production stages of the music video we had to start to think about making our digipack and magazine advert. so we started to do research into such things. we looked through music magazines such as MOJO and looked at the adverts, this way we could fin the conventions and find what stood out and what kind of thing we liked. we also looked at album covers to see what looked good and what we liked.

Editing

we started editing before we had shot all of the footage to allow us more time to edit and also spot any places where we may need extra shots which didn't think of in the planning stages. we used iMovie 9 to edit our footage which was on a iMac. we started to put the footage in roughly the correct order according to our storyboard. this way we good get first look at how well it would come together. the first look we got was promising so we kept on going.

Uploading

we started to upload the footage as soon as possible after we had filmed something, this way we could keep on top of all the uploading and wouldn't have to spend a long time uploading in all one chunk. also this meant if the footage wasn't good enough we had time to plan re-shoots.

problems with green screen

we found that when we went to superimpose the location clips onto the green screen parts of the band began to disappear into the background as did their instruments, we felt that the outcome wasn't good enough so we quickly decided to put a picture of the poster into the background, this would further link to the poster and album cover

Censorship

Before filming we warned the actors and made a conscious decision during filming to avoid copyrighted material and logos on clothing etc, stating ‘please no third party logos, offensive words or symbols, or nudity in anything’ in the email exchanged when organising filming. This was made aware to us in our research into censorship laws and conventions as well as through some videos and watching music video channels. Although music videos are generally exempt from censorship groups such as the BBFC and their age ratings, we were aware that, although our target audience would be mature enough to view such things as nudity, a music video would be accessible to everyone of all ages on music video channels. As well as this we saw no reason as to have nudity or visibly offensive language or symbols in our video. The audience of our video genre and chosen music genre may expect such things (conforming to the uses and gratifications model), however, with no solid reason as to include these elements, we consciously decided not to include it.

Shock Horror

when uploading the green screen footage we found that the tape had somehow been corrupted and so half of the green screen footage was lost. however the footage of the drummer was ok which was the main reason we had to use the green screen so we decided just to film the two other members of the band at the location we orginally choose to shoot at.

filming on green screen

to film on green screen we had to make sure that the lighting on the screen was perfect to eliminate as many shadows as possible, as shadows would change the shade of green and then the software wouldn't be able to superimpose the location footage properly. we filmed several different angles, we used a variety of tripod and steady-cam shots, and also filmed the band as a whole and each member individually so we had a better selection of shots to choose from.

problems with filming at locations

the main problem we had with filming on location was that we couldn't get a drum kit to the location that we wanted. therefore we came with the idea of using a green screen and film the band against that and then separately film the locations and then merge the two in editing.

when filming in the house for the opening shots of the boy waking up, the first shots were lit wrong so the background was too bright and the subjects in the frame turned to silhouettes. this meant we had to do pick ups of this scene and remember to focus on the lighting.

when filming in the quarry, we had to film quickly as we were starting to get shadows in the shot because of the cliff side of the quarry.

Locations

we started to think of the locations where we could film certain aspects of the bands and the narrative. we thought it would be best to film the narrative in our houses. however after further discussion we thought restricting the narrative would be boring and not in keeping with the conventions of music videos. therefore we decided to have the main portions of the argument parts of the narrative happen outside. we started to think about locations to have the band playing. we decided we would like to have them in an outdoor place as it was more in keeping with the song. therefore we looked at places around our town. we liked the thought of having the band outside the back of the local outdoor swimming pool as there is graffiti art on the wall which added to the rock feel of the band. but when enquiring into how to get instruments to the location we found that we were unable to get a drum kit there. for the guitar hero band we decided to film it in one of our houses as it had the fan made feel. for the band made out of our friends we decided to film in the local quarry, as the lighting is good and its a nice open space.

Looking for a band

We started to think about what kind of band to have in our music video. We decided we needed a band with a drummer at least one guitarist and a singer. We created a poster advertising the project. However there was an unfortunate lack of interest. So we began to ask people who we knew could plan instruments to see if either they were in a band or if they knew anyone in a band. We eventually found a band called Terminal Moraine. We also decided we wanted another band so we made one from people we knew despite the fact they couldn’t play an instrument. Jemma (who is part of my group) was the lead singer for this band. We also have a few people playing the game ‘Guitar hero’ this was a nod to the real ‘just a day’ video as the real video is fans playing the song.

Story boarding

we started coming up with specific ideas for the narrative and the bands. once we had our specific ideas we started designing the story boards and deciding which shots would work best for creating the right mood and atmosphere.

pre-production

after deciding what song we were going to make a music video for and finding inspiration from other videos we started to create ideas of what will happen in our music video. we decided we wanted to have a narrative in our music video and so began thinking up ideas based on the lyrics of 'Just a Day'. our interpretation of the lyrics was the story of a boy and a girl who are close friends. however the boy continues getting drunk and taking drugs and the girl hates this as she believes he is ruining his life. the boy on the other hand feels she has no right to tell him how to live, so they argue. after arguing they go in separate directions and have time to think, the boy realises the errors of his ways and tries to apologise to the girl and it all ends happily. after coming up with the idea of the narrative we decided we wanted to have some bands in the video. instead of having one band we were going to have a few just like in the 'rockstar' video. to have a variety in the bands we tried to mix up the type of bands and the locations in which they were playing. i came up with the idea of having a group of teenagers who are playing the game 'Guitar hero' to play the song this is a reference to the real 'just a day' video. we also came up with the idea of having a rock/metal band playing outside, and a smaller band which would play in a quarry.

research

we looked at many different music videos from all genres. some of the music videos i looked at were the one's made by the band 'okgo' i thought the videos were extremely original and creative and had a rustic home made feel about them which made it look more like the band had made the video themselves and had a larger input. we later took inspiration from the song 'Rockstar' from the band 'Nickleback' as we liked the idea of many different people singing the song to create a communal feel to it.