The Music Video

The Killers- Shadowplay from Megan Painter on Vimeo.

Final Digipack

Magazine Advertisement #3

From asking for opinions from our target audience, we found a few spelling errors in the magazine advertisement, so we corrected them to produce the advertisement above. They also suggested that we reduce the size of the white text at the bottom.

Evaluation 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Untitled from Megan Painter on Vimeo.

THE TRANSCRIPT

Media technology has been vital in the construction, research and planning process of our A2 Media Coursework. During this time there has been a wide variety of digital technology available to us, which we have taken full advantage of. This has been crucial in every stage of our work enabling us to create a professional looking project.

The Internet has played a key part in the research stages of our project and has provided us with an infinite supply of existing music videos and digipak helping us to understand the conventions of these products. This ensured that we were able to create a realistic and professional; product which complied with the industry’s conventions. Not only this but the internet has also helped us to research our target audience, UK tribes.com was especially helpful in allowing us access to our target audience, giving us and insight and in-depth knowledge of the music they like, their interests and hobbies. This allowed us to target our media products correctly. This information has been indispensible to our coursework and arguably would not have been so detailed without the use of the Internet.

We used a Sony DCR-HC62 camera to film our video. The high quality camera enabled us to achieve the crisp look we wanted and needed for our video to look professional. The camera also allowed to use settings, which manipulated the footage and lighting to give a better effect. For example we used the spotlight setting, which concentrated the lighting giving the footage a more enhanced, defined look. When filming the melting candle we used the “smooth interval tape recording setting” which filmed the candle for one second every 2 minutes and we left this running for 3 days. This allowed us to speed up this footage whilst maintaining a smooth appearance and get an effective clip of the melting candle. We also experimented with different ways of holding the camera. We used a handheld effect to create the illusion of Harry being watched or followed we also used a point of view, handheld whip-pan to create a relationship between viewers and the characters by allowing them to see things from Harry’s perspective.

Once we had completed our filming we uploaded all of our footage into Final Cut via an Apple Mac computer. We imported our audio and locked it into place. We then captured all of our footage and it was ready for us to drag into our timeline and begin creating the final product. We dragged clips into the viewer and marked the sequence in and out to attain the part of the sequence we wanted. Our final video was gradually pieced together in this way and using Final Cut we were able to watch the material we had placed in the timeline as we went along. Final Cut also enabled us to use transitions in our video to give different effects. We used the “Fade In Fade Out” transition to give a smoother change between clips when needed, for example in places where the music slowed down. We used cross dissolves in order to convey Harry’s confusion as the blurred images effectively conveyed this feeling of disorientation as he awoke in a completely different place. Another important effect Final Cut enabled us to achieve was the overlay. Using the different video layers we could merge images and effectively portray the idea of Harry's nightmare as he is trying to fall asleep but cannot seem to escape the taunting images of the clown. This also enhanced the professionalism of our video, and as a technique used often in indie rock videos, meant we were conforming to the conventions of this genre. Using the modify toolbar in Final Cut we were also able to manipulate the speed of our footage. For example by increasing the speed of our time lapse section we were able to convert a 10 minute clip into one that only lasted 6 seconds effectively portraying Harry’s isolation and the sense of being trapped in his own mind as the whole world moves on around him.

During filming, we often took a digital camera on set to take pictures for our digipack and magazine advert. The camera we used was A Samsung ES60. This is a high-resolution digital camera, which produces quality pictures and is equipped with an array of features. These include the focus feature, which allowed us to blur the background and focus on two objects. This feature allowed us to produce the image of Harry and The puppet in the woods. The use of the camera contributed to our planning stages of the digipack and magazine advert. We also had the capability to change the scene of the camera to a scene called ‘Dawn’ which allowed us to produce the slightly lower contrasted images, such as the photograph of the alleyway. This camera also provided a spotlight setting, which allowed us to take focused, and more concentrated photos. This was very useful when attempting to take the image of Harry. The camera had a 2.5" 230K Intelligent LCD screen, which enabled a contrast and colour reproduction, allowing a wider and clearer image. The camera automatically detects environmental illumination and adjusts LCD brightness for optimal image viewing, which was extremely useful for the different environments in which our photos were taken.

Photoshop contributed majorly, with the construction of our digipack and magazine advert. The final image for the magazine advert consisted of two photographs of the clown, and one photograph of Harry. We used a faded eraser to eliminate the background of the images to ensure that the edges were not too harsh. We then adjusted the opacities and fills of the images to be able to combine the images, and produce a paranormal-like image. After adjusting the brightness slightly, we inserted a black background to draw attention to the faint image, creating a soft spotlight on Harry. With the use of the free transform tool, we were able to insert each image on a separate layer, to create the final one. The second image used, was of the puppet and Harry in the woods. We simply desaturated the image and used the history brush tool to recover the colour of the puppet. In a similar way, the third image was also desaturated. However, we used the lasso tool to enhance the colour of the alleyway. The back cover of the digipack consisted of two main images: the background and the weak image of Harry. The background image was simply reduced to opacity of 30%, and placed onto of a black background. The image used on the actual CD was a high quality photograph, and therefore, all that was needed to improve the image, was to desaturate it. we had to use the elliptical marquee tool to draw a circle around the image, and inverse the selection so that the image of harry, was shaped to blend onto the CD. we could then use the eraser tool, to erase the background and create a circular shape. Photoshop also gave us the opportunity to warp the text around the shape of the CD. Many images were manipulated in Photoshop to create the final products. Photoshop is equipped with a huge variety of fonts, which gave us a huge scope of font choices for the different texts used. We would not have been able to do this in most Microsoft programmes, as they do not provide the vital fonts we required for our digipack. This also contributed to planning and research, as we could ask our target audience on their views of the fonts.

Photoshop also helped to display the digipack, in a 3 dimensional format on Blogger. With the warp tool in Photoshop, I was able to warp the images onto a canvas and upload them as a JPEG in Blogger. Blogger is an interactive blog and been used for the display and planning of our products. Blogger is like an interactive folder, which contains labels, posts, links, and archives. Blogging allowed us to manage our time as it allowed us to see what needed to be completed, as well as to present/show all the research and construction of our work. Through Blogger, we were able to display our research of media conventions through the embedding of example music videos. This was a simple process, and simply involved copying and pasting embedding codes. We were also able to create collages in other programmes to post our planning and research onto Blogger. With the use of programmes such as SlideShare, we were able to upload presentations onto our Bloggers to display our planning and research into our target audience. Blogger, also allowed us to include hyperlinks in our work presentation, which was used as part of our research and planning stages.
During the evaluation stages of our project, media technology has been key in presenting ad assessing our work. We have used technology to answer this very question using the audio from the camera, which was then exported to stream clip, which extracted the audio only. This has allowed us to present our work in an engaging format using digital technology to our full advantage. We have also used the cameras to present our feedback evaluation question where we have tried to adopt an interview style commonly associated with the music industry. This was then edited and cut in final cut pro. We have also used the social networking site Facebook to get more audience feed back for our products. This was a useful platform for us to use as, as shown from our research this is one of the main ways our target audience consume their media.

HTML Scroll Boxes

Evaluation 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From previous research, we decided to target the Indie Kids and Indie Scenesters. With help from UK tribes, we were able to find the characteristics of our target audience. It is imperative that we gathered feedback from our target audience, to measure whether we were obliging to the codes and conventions of an indie music video. We had to gather feedback for our final cut, ancillary task, and rough cut.

The first thing we gathered feedback from, was our rough cut. We showed our rough cut to fellow classmates and they all filled out a sheet describing what they did and did not like about our rough cut. It was necessary to gather feedback for our rough cut so that we could see where we were going wrong before we continued. Also, we could change anything which was dominantly disliked by them. This meant that we obliged accordingly to meet our target audience feedback. This feedback was useful because with help from our media class and fellow peers, they could help to spot weaknesses, which we had not yet seen, or that other people may not see.

From this feedback, we learnt that the strenghts of the video were the fast paced cuts at the end of the video. However, the lighting used for the strings was too dark. We had to refilm this inorder to change it. Also, it was clear that the alleyway scene needed to be relocated because it did not 'fit in with the rest of the video accordingly'. These are changes which we aimed to change quickly in order to produce the best possible final cut.




After completing our final cut, we decided to post our video on Facebook, to gain feedback from peers and our target audience. Facebook, is a social networking site. However, we could not display the music video on Facebook for too long. Below is the feedback we received.

Luckily the feedback was quite positive, however, we then decide to interview specific people who fitted our target audience description more precisely. We have also used the concept of point evidence comment so each time someone has made and point or commented we have used evidence from our video to prove this is valid. This was useful, as it helped us to bear what aspects of the video were good and which needed improvement. However, we needed to interview our target audience, in relation to our ancillary tasks.

Untitled from Megan Painter on Vimeo.

From our audience feedback, I think I can conclude that the video was quite a success. There were very few negative comments from our target audience. Most of them agreed that the video looked like a real music video, which shows that we have obliged to the codes and conventions of the Indie rock genre quite well. Also everyone we interviewed agreed that the ancillary task correlated with the music video well, displaying clear use of convergence for the product. However, if I was to do this again, I think I would gather a bit more feedback for the ancillary task. We carried out research in terms of fonts and images for the ancillary task. We also asked peoples opinions of the ancillary task, while creating it. However, even though we stuck to the codes and conventions of current digipacks and magazine adverts, I still think we should have carried out a formal survey on the ancillary tasks. However, the ancillary task seemed to be a success as no one had any negative comments about it. So overall the target audience feedback was quite positive.

Evaluation 2

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

To test its effectiveness, we had to ask our target audience whether they liked the three promotional packages, and how well they worked together. We did this through providing a questionnaire, and through our audience feedback video. Most of the feedback was positive

“the clown and the face repetition made a good brand to sell the image"

"It was clear that the three products belong together"

“everything seemed to overlap nicely”

“there is a strong link between all three products”

Our brief requests that we create a music video as well as two ancillary tasks to promote the music video. We chose to create a magazine advertisement and a digipack for the album. We had to create a strong continuity of house style to collaborate all three different products. In the music industry, artists usually carry a house style throughout their products for promotional purposes. This can include logos, styles, fonts, images. This allows the artists to be easy to identify. Our main aim is to cross promote the products to enhance synergy for promotion purposes of the band.

Evaluation 2

View more presentations from Media Work.