Welcome To Our Blog

Hello and Welcome to our Blog for our A2 Media Studies Work. In our group is myself Alex Pickering, Dan Haycocks and Darryl Taylor.

Music Video Analysis
No Gettin' Oven You
The Killers
Nothin on You
Fatboy Slim
Ian Brown & The Verve
Oasis
Example

Research
The track we have deiced to use for our music video
Permission Request Letter
Audience Research
Audience Research Feedback
Location Research
Genre and Target Audience
The consumption of Music

Plan
Treatment Ideas
Equipment Available to Use
Written Treatment
Treatment (Darryl Version)
Storyboards
Audio Blog Update
Animatic
Video Shot Plan (Studio)
Costume/ Props Ideas
Risk Assessment
Video Shot Plan (Narrative)

Testing
Camera Test Shots
Track Testing
Stedicam Testing & Testing 2

Music Video Edit 1
Studio Based Edit
How we used final cut to edit
Update: Recording of the narrative


Magazine
Codes and Conventions of a Magazine Advert
Magazine Advert Research
Creation of the Magazine Advert
Creation of the Magazine Advert 2
Update: Weather Problems
Update on the Magazine Advert
Draft of the Magazine Advert
Magazine Advert Survey
Magazine Advert Feedback
Magazine Advert Final Copy

Music Video Edit 2
Day 1 Recording the Narrative
Narrative Progress
Narrative Progress 2
Time Lapse Editing
Show the Class our Draft Video
Costume, Props & Semiotics
Final Video
Update: Whats going on Next


Digipak:
Audio Blog - Digipak Ideas
Digipak Research
Digipak Template
Codes and Conventions of a Digipak
More Digipak Research
Our Digipak Front Cover
All sides for the Digipak & Feedback
Individual Digipak Panels
Final Digipak


Evaluation:
Question 1 - In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 
Question 2 - How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation process? 
Question 3 - What have you learnt from your audience feedback? 
Question 4 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? 

Question 1 - In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We answered this question by recording a group video below.


We talked about all elements of the music video that we produced. Not just the final video, but also the digipack we created, the magazine advert, and our research where we found the codes and conventions in the music industry.

From our initial research our eye was draw to the elbow magazine advert.

Elbow Album Cover

Elbow Magazine Advert

Our Magazine advert and Digipack

Our Magazine Advert

Our Album Cover

Question 2- How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation process?

Introduction 
As part of the A2 level  media coursework we created a music video that was non liner narrative. We also created a digipak and a magazine for the music video that we made. As a group of three we all contributed to all of the main tasks of producing these products.
Once we had decided the song that we are going to use to product the music video we wrote down possible ideas that connect with the song choice 'Maybe tomorrow - Stereophonics'
We decided to use some of the ideas that were used in the original music video such as tracking shots and a studio take.
I am going to evaluate the product that the group created in A2 using 4 questions which we are going to answer.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation process?
We used the new media technologies in the contruction of the music video, magazine advert and the digipak.
To make the treatment we used Prezi which is a website where you can create interactive presentations. This was a useful website to display the treatment because it allows the use to scroll through the presentation and it allowed us to add images of the locations. It also helped us create the treatment more like a time line so people know how the music is going to be set up.

This is a screenshot of prezi.com
The website has lots of tools that you can you to enhance the presentation. I inserted images that I took of the locations and I also used a screenshot of the location using googles street view service.

We used DropBox to share all of our work using a cloud based service which allowed us to access all of the work at home or college. This meant we could do some work at home because all of the members of the group have access to a Mac at home and the software that was needed for the unit.
DropBox automatically updates the files and syncs them to your computer so everything was up to date so when a member of the group edited some work the rest of the group had the updated files.

We used Evernote on Mac and the iPhone/iPod Touch to share notes with the whole group so we knew what work needed doing and so we could share ideas.
Evernote syncs with many different services so we had access to it on different devices. If we got set deadlines for certain task by the teacher then we added the information to a note so we had all the information that we were given.

To edit the music video we used the latest version of Final Cut Pro on the MacBooks. Final cut is one of the most advance video editing software around. We used a feature in this alot called multiclip this is virtually unheard of but is a very advanced tool allowing you to basically have a digital vision mixer, this helped greatly in the studio scenes as we could see all 5 clips and then cut between them all really easily.

To produce the digipak and magazine advert we used Adobe Photoshop because of the different features that the software has. We used alot of the advanced features in this such as the gradient and also the brushes tool to create our adverts. This allowed alot more creativity than something like paint and allowed exact measurements for us on how we wanted our advert to look. With using this as well we were easily able to edit files anywhere as it saves as a .psd that once opened in photoshop again allows you to change anything meaning we were all easily able to contribute towards the workload.

For the audience researched we made a blog post of the different questions we wanted to ask and people would answer them using the comment feature on blogger.
We also gave people a handout of the questions to full out so we got back some feedback. using blogger allowed not only the class to easily acsees but also the whole of the internet, using this allowed them to easily comment back with there answers giving us alot more people to target the research at.





As well as this we also used the technology of the internet to perform alot of our research, this saves alot of time instead of having to call press people from the band to ask questions. It also meant we were able to find niche fan bases that otherwise we would not have been able to find. This helped alot as in our research really allowed us to cary out alot more detailed research.

Question 3 - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

The audience feedback that we received helped us to improve the magazine advert, music video and digipak.

We made some questions and asked people to answer them for us. The questions that we asked were to help us improve them and get feedback about the things they liked.

We asked different questions for the music video, magazine advert and the music video which helped up know what people liked about them and what people thought needed improving.

All of the feedback was positive suggesting things that we should add to the project like with the magazine advert we had some feedback saying we should add a HMV logo instead of text so the advert had more images on so it stands out. After getting this feedback we added the hmv logo to the advert and we liked the improvement that we made.

These are the questions we asked for getting feedback on the magazine advert. 

We got people to answer the questions on the blog and we also got feedback from other members of the class and people around college. 

As well as this we also visited forums for the Stereophonics as well as posting on general music sites with the same questions. This was so then we could get feedback from people who really were big fans of the band and know all about the bands image and what they look like. We feel this was very beneficial to us as this allowed us to see inside more a die hard fan and what types of things they like as well, so while covering for our target audience we also had the view of a niche audience that is basically obsessed with them giving a different view.

Question 4- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

We believe that the combination of our main product and ancillary texts has been effective and successful because they are all linked together. 

Our product that we made fits the genre of soft rock because of the style of the music video, digipak and the magazine advert. 

The music video we created followed some of the codes and conventions of the soft rock genre. One of the codes and conventions is having a guitar in the music video and someone performing the song.

As you can see we also used someone preforming the song and playing a guitar this is very mutch like our band that we are focusing ons videos who have this type of thing in theres. It also fits the codes and conventions well for the genre that this is part of and follows.
Another code and convention of soft rock is having props like a mic stand and we also used a mic stand in the studio take this was fully wired up to give full realism and is usual sight to see in soft rock.
 This again also follows the look that our bands original video gives as well as many bands of the same genre such as Oasis, Ian Brown and The Stones Roses.




Our digipak and magazine advert use the same image on the front so they all link together so for example is someone sees the advert in a magazine and then see the same image on an album they will relate to it and know its the same album they saw in the magazine.

Heres an example of how we have used the same image on the digipak and the magazine advert.

We have used the same font for both of the products so that people can identify the artist and the song. This works very well as a marketing campain and as said allows the public to easily relate on what they saw walking down a street. this is likely to bring in more sales and then allow the artist to spend more money on future songs.

The magazine advert below as you can see is nearly exactly the same as the digipack and we feel that this is a wise move to take for the advertising reasons. We also feel that this works very strongly with the video as well as the image is a take from the studio footage so as well as showing the digipack also reminds people of the video that was created.

Digipack Final (All Panels)

Following up our previous post about the front panel for the digipack we have now been working on all panels of our digipack. We received feedback on this from various class members who are inside our target audience as well as a couple of people outside our target audience. Below is the template we used for the whole digipack along with our finished products.

Digipack Panels

Before we posted our grid for our digi packs and thought that maybe it would be a good idea to include all panels of our digi pack so that people can see them as they were designed slightly bigger. Below are all the panels that we have created for the digi pack.

Front Panel

Back Panel

Inside Cover

Inside Panel 1

Inside Panel 2

Digipack (All Panels) Draft & Feedback

This is our draft for the digipack, our first tile for the front has already been posted and is up on the blog, we have received comments about this saying it is a great idea to have the advert the same and alot of people think this is a great advertising idea.

Below is a draft of our digipack, this is with all of the front and back panels in the colours for the advert and then the fold over that will be seen when opened is black with the picture of our actor on. This then shows a pure black inside. While we like this we are going to receive some feedback to see what others think of this.

Below is a video of us making the digipack with a audio commentary 

To get some feedback we then asked a range of people from our class 3 questions on how we could improve it, here are there answers.

1. Do you like the design of the digipack overall ?

2. What do you think could be changed ?

3. Do you have any ideas for it ?

Joel

1. Yes overall i like the design and think it looks professional

2. I feel that the inside is slightly to blank

3. Maybe have a graphic on the inside covers or the sun ray effect

Matt

1. Ye i think the design is simple and effective

2. The inside is very bare

3. Use the sun rays to great a half sun on each side

Ryan

1. Like the design and use of colour

2. I feel that the inside is missing something

3. Add the sun rays on the inside

After looking at our feedback we decided that the best cause of action is to add something on the inside. While we like it our target audience feel it is very bare so we will look into changing. I like Matt's idea of having it so the sun rays are in opposite directions each side and feel that this may work well, we will definably look at this.

Digipack

This is the front cover that we have made for the digipack. As we discussed in our earlier post this is the same design as the poster like elbow did with their album cover and digipack. We felt this worked well as people who saw the advert would instantly remember the advert and think about it. Below is our front cover.

Evaluation of Digipak

Digipaks are very effective because they display all the information that is necessary for the audience. They are visually good to look at because of the different images of the music videos and album artwork. The CD also has an image on and normally the track listings as well. Examples of the information on typical digipaks are: Music Producer Information, Track Listings, Fan websites address and facebook page, The band information.

The images are attracting people pick them up and look at them so the images play a big part of people wanting to buy the album.

There are different types of digipaks with different numbers of panels and most of them are made out of card to be more environmentally friendly.

The one that we chose was the 4-panel digipak because it is one of most popular. We will have images on every side of of the digipak and have information on the inside and back cover. The 4-panel digipak is also more environmentally friendly because less materials are used to produce it.

Codes and Conventions of Digipaks

We reached digipaks to find out what the codes and conventions are of digipaks. Below is a list of the codes and conventions:

• The record company name appears somewhere on the digipak
• The artist name appears on the digipak
• A Barcode normally appears on the back cover of the digipak
• The album name appears on the front cover
• The digipak will have album artwork on it 
• Most digipaks are made from card and have a plastic disc tray 
• The track listing and track times normally appears on the back cover
• An order code sometimes appears on the spine of the digipak
• The record company logo and website appear on the back

Digipak Production

During researching our digipack we have found a great template on the internet to use for our digipack design. This was found while researching digi packs on the internet and feel that this template would be a great help to us in photoshop. We can now put this onto photoshop and put in our own designs onto the template to create a digi pack for our work,

Digipack Research

For my digipack research i looked at many different types of digipack. I recorded what i thought was good about them and what i thought was bad about them in note form so that when we made our digipack we could decide what type of digipack we wanted.

The first digipack i looked at had the front cover with the name of the band along with the name of the album. It also had a photo of the band on the front. As you open out the digipack there are 2 bits of card each side of a plastic disc tray. These have a special thanks on the right side of it and then the track list of the album on the right. Along this it also has photos of the band. As we fold over the right side we see credits on who has produced the album. Once the whole album is folded back up as we would find it on the shelves on the back we see again see on the back a track list. This is not as full as the inside but i summarizes the tracks.

Another type of digipack we saw was for justice cross, this was very good as when folded out it formed the shape of a cross. The middle when folded out had the CD in it this was good as i liked that it was completely central. The top of the cross had the track names in and the rest of the CD case was black. When folded up it had the cross on the front along with album tracks on the back of it.

Audioblog (Digipack Ideas)

Just a quick audio blog outlining what we are doing and how everything is going so far. We talk about what we are doing for the digipack and how editing is going on final video.

BLOG:Whats Next ?

So now the videos done we are onto our final product for the unit, this comes in the form of a digipack. We have had a great idea for this to do the digipack the same as the advert nearly. This was decided after seeing a advert and digipack cover from a band called elbow, We are currently looking at this and will be posted onto the blog.

Costume, Props and Semiotics

This is the original music video from stereo phonics that I analysed. I explained that costumes and the props that they have used.












This is a photo from our music video and I have analysed the costume and props that we have used in the studio footage.



Semiotics 

Semioticians classify signs or sign systems in relation to the way they are transmitted. This process of carrying meaning depends on the use of codes that may be the individual sounds or letters that humans use to form words, the body movements they make to show attitude or emotion, or even something as general as the clothes they wear. 

Source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics] 

We used some footage of clouds for the time lapse in the music video. We used it to show the audience that time is passing. We sped the video up so we see the clouds moving across the sky. The main music video cuts to the footage of the clouds for a few seconds and then it cuts back to the video in the studio. 

Final Video

After taking into consideration all the feedback we received as well as the blog comments from our teacher this is our final produced video. This has been all created in Final Cut Pro and is exported in HD for youtube.

Below is the video (best watched in 1080p HD,

Class Showing

Today we did a little class showing of our video just to get ideas and tweak the video before it's final release. This was just put on a laptop screen and then we went round showing other groups. here is some of the feedback we received.

Joel
The video is overall very good but i think that in some places the video jumps to fast, this is mainly in the studio footage. I think you should have this slightly more smooth.

Ryan
I think the video is pretty good i like the jump cuts for all of the walking scenes, i don't though like your studio footage i think that this cuts far to fast and because the track is laid back this doesn't suit it.

Joe
I like the video very much i think though that the contrast between the two days is to much and needs something like an effect to make it seem more similar.

Our Response 
We agree with the feedback we have received, i agree that the footage does seem very jumpy in the studio footage so we will use some fades as well as look at what we have done to correct this. The editing pace we feel is at a good level and while not slow we feel that this is a good speed, there is however a couple of to fast cutting clips so we will look at this.

Lastly about the filter over the video we agree very much on this and we plan to ovally a black and white filter on the footage.

Time Lapse Editing

This was a time lapse made from 10 minuets of footage, it was then speeded up by around 7000x its normal speed making it around 12 seconds long. This is going to be used all  being well at bits in our final music video. This fits the title well of maybe tomorrow showing the time passing by.

The setup we used for this was a camera on top of a tripod, from here we then just left it recording to get the footage that is below.

BLOG: Narrative Progress 2 & Timelapse

Just updating that today we went out to Nantwich and Whitchurch to get our final footage for our narrative bit.  Now we have done this we can then move onto doing our time lapse bits, these will be done in Wem but on the way through to Nantwich we saw a loverly place called Audlum where we will get a time lapse video. We are also going to visit the same location in shrewsbury that we did the narrative at to get some footage.

BLOG: Narrative Progress

So yesterday me and Alex went off to film the narrative sequence of our video, this was done in shrewsbury. Overall we got alot of our stuff that we wanted and we had the added bonus of the weather being able to not rain for a bit of time.

We will be going just quickly next week to record 2 shots that we didn't have time to do over the other side of the county and Whitchurch and Nantwich. then apart from that we will be going then to get our time lapse footage that we need.

Outside Recording Day 1

Today me and Dan went off into Shrewsbury and surrounding locations to do a bit of filming for the narrative part of our music video.
As the main performer in our studio footage wasn't available we have decided to use dan as the actor for the narrative side of the video. We recorded two little video blogs while at the two locations explaining what we were going to do. The weather wasn't exactly brilliant, but we managed to get some recordings before it started to pour down with rain.

Magazine Advert Final Copy

After alot of handwork and gaining feedback about our design we feel that this is up to the specification for our final advert. This is very similar to our draft but using the feedback from that we have no improved this to make up our final advert.

The advert is below, to view in full screen just click it.

Magazine Advert Feedback

Now that we have asked a number of people in our classroom the questions in the previous post we will now collate the results we receive into a essay.

Overall our feedback group said that they like the advert and feel that it looks professional and suites the target audience we are aiming for well. 100% of the people we asked said that the text was a great choice and that it stood out very well, everyone we asked said that they would be able to read that easily and feel that it suits the target audience well while being very easy to read. Most of our audience said that they like our colour scheme but a few said they feel that it is slightly dull, while we agree with this from the adverts we have looked at for the stereophonics they are all very dull as this fits the target audience well.

Most of the people we asked like the graphic we have created, they feel that this works well and feel that it is very different from most things that are used in adverts. Some people thought that a photo of the band may be better but because we have had problems getting the actor again this is not possible.

Now that we have found out about what people like in our advert we are now going to look at what they think the advert needs. The people that we asked in our survey said that they thought the advert needed more web links, things such as the bands website or twitter or facebook. We agree with this and looking at other adverts again they have alot more web content on there adverts.

The last thing we asked was would you change anything about the advert, our feedback group said that the only thing they would change is make some of the text for the date slightly smaller and also make the image of the actor slightly slanted so that the guitar is more straight

Magazine Advert Survey

Now that we have done a magazine advert we will now get any feedback that we need on it to then help make it better.

1. Is the text clear on the advert so that you can read it ?
2. Do you like the colour scheme of the advert ?
3. Do you like the graphic of the band ?
4. Do you feel we have missed anything on the advert ?
5. Would you change anything about the advert ?

Once we have receive feedback we will then collate this and write up our findings

Magazine Advert Draft

This is our final advert that we have created for our magazine advert.

The advert can be seen fully by clicking on it this will open into a new window with the full advert. The advert was created for A4 magazine size the default that most magazines print at. Overall we are very happy with the advert, we feel that the fits fit the band very well as well as being very easy and clear to read. The main bits that stand out are the date as well as the bands name and single we feel this works well ad this draws in peoples attention.

The background is just a plain black background with a photoshop brush applied this has then had a gradient put on to make it fade out. We will now gain feedback on our design so that we can then round the magazine advert off and create our final advert.

Photoshop Update on the Magazine Ad

After dans Video Blog a few days ago, I have done a new video update to show you how the progress has developed. We have made a few versions and experimented with different Photoshop techniques as seen in the video below.

Below are the experimental Photoshop effects as seen in the video.

Weather Problems

Due to the problems we have been having with weather mainly because of snow the video is going to be delayed as we currently cant film. This is due to being very slippy and risky but also if the snow all goes and we haven't filmed all of our video this will look funny. Because of this we will be working to finish the magazine advert, this may take time though due to exams in other subjects. This is going very well however and as you can see we update our progress onto the blog.

The new date for filming is February the 12th, this maybe a whole month on but the bad weather is set to continue and as i said earlier alot of us have exams to work on as well.

Making Of the Advert

This is just a small video of us making the magazine advert as well as the graphic that will be used on both the magazine advert as well as the digipack. This is a screen grab from photoshop with audio commentary of what we are doing.

Magazine Advert Progress

Today we have been working on our magazine advert, we decided to use a studio shot of our actor to make our digipack and also our magazine advert. For the magazine advert we have got this imaged and cut around it in photoshop totally. The original image is below.

This image has now been reworked by us in photoshop, to do this we first cut around the image, after doing this we then went and changed our image via the photoshop effects into a stroke effect. With this done we then added a white outline around will and this is how it looks when all cut out onto a black background.

This image as you can see is exactly the same image but with alot of work in photoshop has been totally transformed into something else. This will be the main part of our magazine advert and will be based around this image mainly. A video is below showing how we cut out this in photoshop and what we did. Below is also a idea of something we could have on the magazine advert.

This is just a idea we had for the digipack or the magazine advert and is easily done using photoshop brushes, because of this we have decided we will look more into these for our final draft.