Q.3 Evaluation How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages ?

Blogger was an essential part of Planning, and evaluation, alongside google which helped with research and is linked to blogger. Using blogger enabled us to note information learnt in the class during research and planning, post our videos and animatics and evaluate our products altogether. Google helped with research on ancillary products artists and genres and music videos, planning on google video & youtube (also in the screenshot) helped us get to websites such at fast paces such as vimeo (see screenshot underneath) in order to view our work and see tutorials and make presentations on prezi (also in the screenshot)

              Final cut was use as a medium for editing our work. It helped with putting together our music video, adding different effects and transistions. This also helped with our planning because we had to make an animatic in FCP. This was one of the key pieces of technology we used. To use FCP you have to have a video drive. once the video drive is inserted, you can import clips from a storage device, drop them into a timeline and start editing. You can use effects, change the colour of your shot, centralise and disorientate your shot and so much more. In FCP we used base tracks to edit over what we had done and create little jumps visually in the video. Also using the opacity tool we were able to fade Lashmi into another shot where it looks liks a projection on the wall or Lashmi is actually a part of the party behind her.

Clipgrabber helped us when handbrake was having it's technical difficulties. This helped us convert videos into files that were compatible with blogger. This was used by inserting a clip, clicking convert for blogger and after a period of waiting, BLAM! you have your converted file on your desktop to put onto blogger. This was used during the editing stage and the evaluation stage as clips from our flipcam and our FCP work had to be upload

Handbrake was the initial program used to convert files to be compatible with blogger. This was used virtually the same way as Clipgrabber only a different process. The clip had to be seleceted for conversion. The setting I phone and I Pod Touch had to be selected and then the conversion progress would begin. Same outcome as Clipgrab. Only we used Handbrake for our planning to convert the animatic

Fontcase was a program that had many fonts downloaded each day for the use of our ancillary products. To use this you simple have to pick a font you like, add it to Photoshop and BLAM! For your use. Only problem is sometimes you have to go back and get the font if you use different computers.

Photoshop was used for our ancillary products. This enabled us to alter photos and create backgrounds to make our CD covers and posters look appealing. I wasn't very good at using it however I did my best. Refer to my digipack and my poster to see what wonders it can do which include using the star tool to create ratings on my poster, using photoshop opacity to fade me into the background of my CD holder and changing my photo on my inside cover to balck and white as well as adding text with it

The state of the art £3000 pound camera (which could easily put any of us students in debt by damaging it) was used to film our music video. Another key piece of technology that was essential to our project. Firstly the on position on the camera to commence with filming. The neutral density feature made secured our night filming as it gave us a little extra light whilst recording the shot. The manual and Auto foucs settings at the front and to the side of the camera so we could control the focus of the shot before and during filming to eliminate any blurriness unless it was intentional. we did this by picking a point in the distances to focus on and zooming outmaking sure that everything was in foucs.

We also use the flip cam for feedback in our evaluation. the picture shows a diagram of it's functions

Q3 Evaluation How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages ?

Evaluation question 1

In our music video we used is Amplification- when the video introduces new meanings that do not contradict with the lyrics but add layers of meanings. 

We used this device by making certain elements of our video relate to the music video. For example the lyrics I am a man with a heavy heart. 

We see this in many video's such as im into you by Jennifer Lopez (lil wayne's lyrics get the sand out your shoes) 

Carol Vernallis' theory on editing and camerawork got highly taken into account within our music video breaking the rules of continuity editing was one of the key points of hers that we had to stick to. This involved using lots of jump cuts and Edits can be really obvious drawing attention to themselves, such as wipes and special effects. 

We did this with each chorus with the opacity and the distortion effect relating the effect to the Drake video Miss me 

We also used the convention of the artist narating the story throught the main artist. Our main inspiration for this convention was the Skepta video Amnesia 

Shannon, Viet, Isla, Lashmi from 283goswell on Vimeo.

another video that we can clearly see that the edits move to the beat is Drake headlines music video














Music video's that influenced us to make certain choices and create imitations were key to us making our music video

On of the many was Obviously Blind Faith itself. Our house party scene was inspired by their seemingly D.I.Y Warehouse rave.  The lights and the atmosphere is what  we tried to emulate in the chorus scenes. Because the blind faith video already challenged the conventions of UKF music video's and any kind of music video by imitating or using the footage from a home video we thought that the song was open for interpretation.

We were also influenced by a couple of other videos that determined what shots and effect we featured in our music video.  One of these videos were Pitbull - Give me everything




we also tried to imitate this shot of the artists without the crowd of people dancing but still maintaining focus and power

We also used the opacity impaired shot from J-lo's video on the floor. We thought it would be a very visually catching effect and it isn't commonly used so it would be an interesting choice.  We also altered this effect and added a transition to imitate drakes video.






Another convention we added was the camerawork and editing going with the beat of the music.

My digipack was influence by all these cross over artists including Jomie Foxx, Usher and Trey Songz these are unconventional to the genre of our artist but we imagine our artist as a crossover artist who wouldn't just make music for one genre.

Q2 Evaluation How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product (Video) And Ancillary Texts (Digipak And Advertisement) ?

The purpose of a music video is to sell their album. Even though  my digipak has only 10 songs and the design of the digipak has a slight visual links to one of the tracks list we created, the purpose of this is that it is to promote the artist. During the production stages of my group's music video, we haven't thought about the ancillary products yet because we was busy filming. Then soon as we finish our filming we realise that from most music video the artist doesn't tend to wear the same costumes as on their album cover. The photographing was done by the group so we can decide which pose and image would fit our cover.

By doing this, the photographs we had would show a direct link to the music video as the images show Shannon with the same urban clothing, in the similar location and with the same props as in the music video. We had to plan to do a separate photo shoot this would be time consuming but we didn't had much time during when we was filming. We wanted to just have the artist on the cover which can capture the audience attention which would have to recreate the similar scene as in the video and this would be difficult to do. We also did not want to take stills from the music video itself as we were told the image quality would be distorted. I feel my main and ancillary texts are successful as both have clear and noticeable links to each other in many ways.

The fact that the artist is used on the ancillary products show that the music video, digipak and advertisement all relate. In the media industry, you will generally find the artist trying to promote his/her own album by being  feature in their own music video. The advertisement is the main reason for all these products are released so that it can promote and sell the artist to the audience whether it can be their name or image when they're advertising.

Q1 Evaluation In What Ways Does Your Media Product use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

A convention is the widely recognised way of doing something - this has to do with content, style and form.

e.g the conventions of music video

they are the same length as the song (somewhere around 4 minutes)
they look at the camera when singing
they have lots of fast edits

In the clip on the top is Pitbull - Give Me Everything and the clip on the bottom is Drake - Over i picked out this scene that inspired me.
What inspired me in the Pitbull video is that it uses alot of fast pace editing and in the Drake video the uses of effect such as over lay and dissolve and fades.

From comparison we wanted to have shot an exact scene as the clip above on the left but however when we was filming we couldn't shot that kind of scene so we decided to use a combination of the clip of Drake - Over by using a different concept of over layer by having the artist singing in front of a white wall whilst having the party in the background and put the over layer on top of that scene. To extend this convention we are using one of Carol Vernallis observation which is special effects which allow the artist/performer just darker enough so the audience focuses on the artist and additional it also allow the viewer to see the party scene behind her.

Below is a a short sample showing how we use fast pace editing by using a scene being on the screen for an average time period of 1- 2 seconds. Also i also use effects such as wipes and dissolves.

An example below is a short scene from a common music video which use this convention 

Traditional in most music video one form of convention which Carol Vernallis state that fast pace editing this is for to grab the attention of the audience and to make it more interesting as sometime without a fast editing videos as the lack of conversation leads to the viewer wanting to see more on the screen as they are not so distracted by characters, plots and speech (the clip continuously keep moving).  

Andrew Goodwin theory about pop music videos he say one of the convention is that the singer is shown as a narrator and as a character too. As the video shown above totally connect to one of the convention Andrew Goodwin uses. The reason why the artist is shown as a narrator and as a character because it so that the audience/viewer can get to know/involve with the artist. 

Another one of Andrew Goodwin convention is that the artist looks at the camera whilst singing this is to engage with the viewer in the performance. This convention is typically used in every music video.

Since our song is a Dubstep/UKG genre type we decided to break the convention by merging two type of genre together ( Hip/hop and Dubstep/UKG ) by doing this we didn't want to stick to one type because it might not attract the audience as much if we merge it together since nowsadays alot of music genre tend to merge with other genre. An example of this is that as you can see from some of the photo above the artist is surrounded by London scenery similar in this photo below.

And the chorus is the Dubstep genre 

This is the chorus scene from our video ->

<- This is the chorus from a dubstep genre. A Dubstep convention which uses much more faster pace editing than a pop music video.

We decided to usea mixture of convention from each genre to give it an edge and to stand out from other different merged genre video's. We chose to focus on just two characters, which was a vocalist who sang the chorus, the artist who sang throughout most of the video. Although we chose amplification which occurs when the videos introduce new means that do not contradict with the lyrics but add layers of meaning. We chose to do our scene mainly around a few words of the lyrics such as "I am a man with a lonely heart" and "The music thay we play will ease your mind". We wanted capture the moment of feeling when your in a party that "happy, hyper, energetic" 

As for my Digipak I looked at several CD covers in the same Dubstep / DnB / Hip-pop genre. The result that i found was majority of Dubstep/DnB/UKG focuses more on the images and the content of the design rather than the photo itself. Then i looked into the Hip-pop genre and it focuses more on the artist on the front cover This is where i got the idea of creating instead of having focusing on the image i removed that image and replace it with a photo.

<- As you can see this is from the Dubstep album which is colourful. Dubstep is a dance music which focuses about the music and being on the dance floor. ->

<- The Hip-pop genre which focus on the artist on the album ->

Here is my final digipak : 

I feel it was quite plain to what a merge genre digipak should look like. By sticking to a simple design focusing just on the artist itself would attract the audience much more. The album front cover look more like a hip-pop genre but when you look in the middle panel it seem to be like a Dubstep genre because of the dj set. I chose this font so that because it is bold and easy to read making it stand out more, but also because it has a slightly different layout effect to it which reflects like a urban vibe to the album.

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My poster : 

Yet again by using the album cover, i wanted the poster to link with my digipak. I feel that my poster is very conventional because i decided to use the Hip-pop genre. For example:

The poster is from the artist Chase & Status they uses a simple layout with bold font in order for the audience to read, it clearly displays all the information for what they are advertising, for this it is their tour dates. I simply used quite a similar layout only just to promote the album. I chose to keep the font the same in my digipak and poster, therefore to keep the two connected, and it seem to quite work out well.

They use no photo of themselves but a picture of a British bulldog which is a logo been used on there "No More Idols" album which is also kept constant throughout their album even on their website which show their connection.

Professor Green poster is quite similar to mine, which uses a photo of the artist which is very conventional in most Hip-pop poster. 

So therefore I feel that my ancillary work are conventional.

Evaluation Q4.

Evaluation Q3.

Evaluation Q.3 on Prezi