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

When planning what we we're going to do for our music video, the Internet played a big role in how we researched and communicated. We used Google and you tube to research the different types of bands and genres of music looking intently at the type of cinematography producers use in music videos, and certain narrative effects and mise en scene. Wikipedia was useful when I'd done research for the history of music. Facebook was used so i could communicate with my group in the holidays we met in town to discuss what we we're going to do, where we we're going to be setting the video and what we wanted in it. We also used Facebook and Myspace to find out when As Gods we're playing. Myspace was also used to listen to their songs and get a feel of the band. Twitter was also used to see what the band was up too and understand the bad and how they act.

We used garage band to split up the song so we could listen to sections of the song and plan the narrative of the music video. I found this an affective way because it help prioritise each set of filming.

When constructing our video we used a Sony camera, it was very good, and easy to use. The only problem we had wit hit was when we took it to film the band the music was to loud and it cause a slight problem and it was unable to record the band singing, luckily we had two other cameras but this restricted the amount of footage we had of the band and we couldn't do a match on action which is what we really wanted to do. When editing our footage we used iMovie, it was great and easy to use. It had everything we needed. When it came to uploading our last bit of footage, the computer would not recognise the camera. This was highly annoying as it had taken four lessons for us to finally access it after the school technicians uploaded it onto a CD. The problem then with this footage was that the image was smalled, and the only way for it to fit screen was if we cropped it, but that led to problems as it cut out some of the scene that we wanted.

We also used Photoshop to edit the photos for our poster and CD cover, we used this to make the image brighter and vivid. for example the church picture, we wanted to make it whimsical looking. We also used In Design to create the fold out CD cover. In Design was a great programme to use when constructing the CD cover, it had alignment boarders which made it easier to align and symmetrical. We also created the poster on In Design again because it was easy to use. To print off the poster and CD cover our college didn't have the right equipment for the our products to be a good quality, so we went to a print shop where, they printed it off a photo copier, and on glossy card.

 

For the evaluation process we are documenting everything in a blog. This is convenient because having a blog is easily accessible anywhere when there is Internet access. The down side of doing it on a blog is the lack of control you have over where things go. I can't structure some of the picture and writing properly, this is a major inconvenience as it makes my blog look messy. We also used Facebook to get feed back about our video. We created an event in which we added people to it, to comment about what they liked or disliked about the music, acting, band footage, narrative. This is a good way to get feedback because you can get many people to look at you video without the hassle of handing out questionnaires, they can give an honest opinion and not have a restricted view of it if a questionnaire was tightly structured.

 

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Feedback is very important in the media industry, especially for independent bands, if audience response is negative the band can take into account peoples views and they can work with that, and improve their future music videos. Mainstream music has a massive fan base and would so they would have a lot more opinions and feedback from there fans, whereas small label band would have a smaller niche audience, and count on their fan base a lot more. 

It was important for my group and I to get feedback for our music video. Our video is aimed at a niche audience who enjoy rock. We got a lot of feedback during the editing process from our teacher. One of the main things she said was that we need to make the link between our music video, poster and CD cover strong, which is important to identify the correlation between the three products. We also put our video on Facebook, to get a wider range of feedback from people. The main thing they said was about how effective the point of view shot was. I'm glad this got positive feedback, my group really liked this shop as it caused shock, it's very uncomfortable and create an unsettling feeling, which we we're really hoping for.

Feedback is also important part of marketing. Quotes are used to promote albums. Well known magazines like NME or Kerrang, or other famous critics, give the album more recognition. People who read music magazine or like critics may think if it is credited by something well known and famous then  it must be good enough to buy and listen to.

If you ignore audience feedback the audience may not take you seriously and you can loose the fan base. Say if a fan pointed said that the music video doesn't have anything to do with the lyrics, and it leaves them completely bewildered, the audience wouldn't appreciate that. Some audiences like to have an obvious link between the lyrics and narrative.

I wasn't surprised with the positive reviews because what people have said about like the mix of narrative and band, are what I like about the products, for example the point of view shot, and how effective it was. i really liked this shot as it showed the extremity of the situation. Many people said that the narrative was very effective.

What a lot of people commented on was there lack of taste in the music. Some people who commented didn't think much of the song. Which is to be expected because everyone has different styles. One person said that they did not like the band footage because she did not like the lead singer. Another person said that they wanted to see more of the band, which i think we should have included but we had problems with a camera that was meant to film a different angle of the band, so we didn't have enough footage to include more angles/scenes of the band.

Positive words people have said about our work.

How Effective is the Combination of your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

The visual motif and elements that link are 3 products together is the Mask, we thought this was the most shocking and memorable element in our video and it was eye catching, people would recognise the CD because of the mask it makes it more iconic. We have also used the same font and colour scheme, it is more visually effective and eye catching, and emphasis the link between the three products. Like in the Britney Spears advertisement and CD cover. It makes it look professional and organised. In both pictures we have put writing on the mask, i think it looks good with the black writing on white back ground, it also links to the black and white scenes of the band in the music video. The name of the song Faith also relates to the song page which is the church, its a very bright and eye catching picture.

I think the motifs link together make it cohesive and understandable in each motif and element, it is important for a recognisable product. They have to link so that the audience you are selling to can recognise the band's advert and are able to buy the CD because they recognise the picture from the advert. This helps the band become more known because they have a reputable picture. We have picked the most prominent picture to be on our CD cover. The Church, band and mask, as they have the most prevalence in the music video.

For a band like the Gorillaz there is a distinct and very iconic image of their band, with their use of animations they have essentially made avatars of themselves. This is a recognisable image that you would easily associated with the Gorillaz, if you see any of their products, it has turned into their trade mark. if they start to have the real faces of band members in the videos now it would only cause confusion, because they have successfully built there reputation on using animation, to represent there band.

For unknown bands they need a recurring motif, it will make their band recognisable, having an unique and obscure logo/design is what will make the CD stand out to a range of people. First appearances are everything, if the CD is plan and unadventurous that will reflect peoples feelings about the songs even if the subjected audience have not heard them. A signature trade mark will become iconic, like the band Kiss' make-up. It is something so obscure that it becomes well known and starts a trend. 

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product was a typical style of the rock genre. In our song we have reflected the narrative with the lyrics, mood and pace of the song. My interpretation of the song is about someone who has done something really bad, and he sees all this beauty around him and he can't appreciate it because he is haunted by his wrong doings. I think the narrative of this goes well with the lyrics, because it is of a boy who has killed somebody, and now his conscious is haunting him to do the right thing and confess, the conscious is meant to represent the lyrics "five minds inside my head," and it's making him insane. The lyrics "I can't explain this feeling that soon I'd be dead" is referring to the ending when he is fighting with his conscious, its meant to be foreboding and shocking. "This is the place i rest my head" This is when the scene is back in the church and he is repenting, and waiting for his final rest.

In our video we have used extreme close ups in our narrative part of the video. We have also use both narrative and band footage in our music video. We put the band scenes in black and white, because we thought it would be more effective and easier to see. It is also quiet a popular conventions and it looks much more sharper and visually effective by having it black and white. We have a mixed range of lighting, the church scenes are quite dark as it is meant to be a haunting place, where the dead are buried. It's a very fast paced and instrumental song which cuts to the beat. We also thought that lip syncing is very effective in a music video it breaks the narrative up makes it more engaging.

We have used existing ads to develop our ideas for the CD cover and poster our intertextual reference is the V for Vendetta film front cover, we liked this image as it was quite haunting and recognisable. We realised that there has to be a correlation between each product. We decided to use the most eye catching and bold image that has a lot of prevalence in the video. This is the mask. It has an eerie and disturbing look. We knew that the poster and CD cover had to be something eye catching and memorable so that people will be drawn in by it. When the boy in the video takes off the mask and drops it, the picture on the front cover of the poster and CD cover is meant to represent how its been dropped and forgotten  but still in good condition, it is meant to be haunting, so the child like looking mask is etched in your brain. Our group and I have understood that this is a film reference, but we find something like this memorable and we wanted to have a cinematic edge to our poster. 


The opening of Fight Club also inspired us to create a circle narrative in our music video. The opening of our video is repeated at the ending to represent the death of the character. Even though it is very different in Fight Club the style of film inspired us to do this, we thought it was very postmodern as it ignores the main conventions of generic films. 

Finally Finished and Audience Feedback

My group and i have finally completed our practical work!  Our CD and poster have taken a different turn, we decided not to go forth with the human cross as the connection to our video was not clear enough to be understood by our audience. So we decided to take different pictures of the mask and use them to create our poster and CD front cover. So we have decided to go with the masks. They are more haunting and iconic, and easy to remember.

These are screen shots of the final stages of editing when we we're tweaking our final bits of print work

This is the final fold out CD cover, i really enjoyed making this, it was fun designing it and picking the must memorable images and then editing the brightness and contrast of the picture. At time it was hard because my group and I could not always decide what we thought it should be. for example we have Three logo's of the band of which we could only choose two, so we said which two we should use and how it would be affective and then we compromised by then trying out the style  and see if it work if it didn't we would change it back. 

The music label that we decided to use is Road Runner Records, we think that this is a suitable choice because, their company deals with rock bands and would have the most experience when dealing with rock bands they'll know the best way to present them and how to market and advertise their band. 

These are some of the images that my group have used in our print work. We thought it would be effective because these are some of the key features in our music video.

Finally this is our final and completed video.

We decided to put the start of the video and use it as the ending as well.  We also got the idea from Fight Club having the start as the end as well, it comes to a full circle from when hes trying to repent, but he is so caught up in killing that person, he get so angry and kills himself by killing his conscience, the church represents his death, with the eyes closing at the end. I like that it is also quite ambiguous and that you can have you own take and views of the video.

Audience research is very important for the music industry. It's useful for the industry because if the audience does not like their product then they can use the audience feedback to make it even better.

The audience thought that the point of view shot in our video was very effective. This was the effect that we wanted, it is suppose to be shocking.

One criticism that we tried to rectify is the jump, when the conscious disappears, we tried to make the transition smoother, but it gradually got worse.

One person said that there should have been more varied shots of the band. Our group had trouble with one of the camera's when filming the band, the music was so loud it caused the camera to malfunction and didn't record.

Poster and CD cover

We have designed the basis of our CD cover, because it is set in a church we have decided to create a cross out of people to represent the song faith and, the slow decline of faith in the narrative of our music video. So we wanted our CD cover to have a cross made out of people. With this idea we all had different ideas about doing it. I wanted it to be black and white and five people to make the cross. Rosie want more people in order to do the outside of a cross, and Nick wanted the cross in a eerie complex design.We eventually decided that the cross would be the outline of a cross in black and white. We feel this is appropriate, my group and i have got this idea from the front cover of the film The Descent. The Motley Crue album art also gave us some inspiration for the front cover of our CD.

The poster is going to be on the same basis as the CD so it will correspond, and have the same featured themes through out the three pieces of course work.

These are some of the ideas of the crosses that my group thought about doing, it helped us in organising and being creative about how we want the cross to look.

This is a design of our CD cover, it is a 6 pan fold up CD. I really like the design of it. i think up holds all the conventions of the rock genre. The design is going to be black and white, with the exception of one of the bands logo that has red in. It fit the conventions of Rock as rock's associated colours are Red, White and Black.

 My group and i have edited these pictures because we wanted a bright picture to make the church look surreal and dream like, as the ending of our film can seem very ambiguous and this represents the end when he's back in the church.

 These four shots are what we took, that we're in the running to go on the cover, but we did not feel that they were symbolic enough to be on there.  

   

 

                                                                                     

These are the edited version of our front cover, we felt that the first one was too silver and did not have any correlation to the white mask. The very white mask lost all the detail, and it doesn't look right, it looks luminous, which also has no correlation to the mask in the music video.



Music video

The song of our music video is called Faith by a local band called As Gods, the bands genre is classed as metal, but the song we have used is not as harsh as typical metal song i would class it as soft rock. Our group first thought of doing their other song called Frozen, but decided against it as it was too long and there instrumental out weighed the lyrical element. Faith had a good variety of instrumental and singing, my group thought it would be very convenient to film them playing at a venue to incorporate it into our music video. We had some problems when we filmed them at the venue, the music was so loud it caused our video camera to malfunction and stopped working, this was a problem because we only had 2 other cameras so we could not get a variety of angles.  

The idea of our video is about a boy who has committed a hit and run. He panicked and was upset about what he had done and drove away. He is now being haunted by his conscience. The conscience is a person who is wearing a mask, the mask is used specifically as iconology, this feature is used to represent a faceless person who he has killed, the eerie look of it is so it is unforgettable and you can picture it in your mind. The music video starts off in a church and he is trying to repent for his actions, but it is too late. There is then a series of shot when you see him being followed. The main character then confronts his conscience, and then attacks and kills him because of the guilt eating him. By doing this he is killing himself. The reverse of the opening footage is due to him being consumed by guilt, theses shots are symbolic of his guilt and how it has killed him, he could not live with it.

We have used performance and narrative which are very generic convention for this type of genre.

We have made the band footage so that it is in sync with the song. This was such a tedious experience because all songs are different when being performed and it made it hard as we found out they had added lyrics to the live proformance. The lead singer was very interactive and quite a lively singer, this was good because he'd done a lot of fist punching and we timed this with the beats in the video.

The Lyrics

Suddenly I find myself

Surrounded by the sun

As I stare into the sky

I see what I’ve become

Blessings in disguise

I see what I’ve become

Visions intertwined

I see what I’ve become

And this is the place I call home

The place I rest my head

And this is the place in my moment

Valleys that I trail

(Who are these voices ringing in my head)

Woah, woah

Now I know

That I’ve got five minds inside my head

But I can’t explain this feeling that soon I’ll be dead

And this is the place I call home

The place I rest my head

And this is the place in my moment

Valleys that I trail

(Who are these voices ringing in my head)

Conventions of Digipacks

What my digipak will have!

-The digipak will have to be realistic and have the element of which the genre characteristics involves. The genre of my song is soft metal/ Rock, so the theme will relate to the song and narrative.
- Have the band name and title of their album
- The logo of the band and record company's logo.
- Pictures of the band, lyrics and the song/songs, that are on the album.
- Reviews from people/ magazines, this will help sell the album if it has positive reviews.

- Dedications from the band, song writer, producer etc.

  

My group has decided to go for a fold out digipak. We think that it is more Eco-friendly, more modern and less hazardous. Plastic digipak can be tedious as they tend to break easily. With a sturdy card board digipak it will be more convenient when storing and, will not snap. I got inspiration from the Massive Attack album, and thought how convenient the CD cover is.

This is a very rough template of what our CD cover is going to be like. We like it's simplicity and how it will be more storage convenient, you also do not have to worry about loosing the inserts as they are already attached to the cover. I think that it is a very good idea, and will enjoy the making of this CD cover.

Conventions of a Rock Music Video

Conventions of a Rock Music Video-Sometimes they are in Black and white.

-The artist or band is shown throughout the video, use of lip syncing.

-Use of extreme close up and long shots.

-Use of lighting, sometimes they can be very dark.

-Very fast paced and cuts to the beat.

-Some use of special effects



Arctic Monkeys- A View From the Afternoon
This follows most of the conventions of Rock it is in black and white and features the band intertwined  with the narrative.



Kasabian- Switchblade Smile
This video is in black and white and also uses extreme close ups. There is no narrative to this video but it uses the rock colours of red, white and black.

Interviewing As Gods.

A good way of getting to know a band is to ask them question and there expectations and experiences of the music industry. We got together and came up with these questions

General

How long have you been a band?

Who started the band?

What/who inspired you to create the band?

Any particular artists/bands that you like or have made an impression on you? And has this come across in your own band?

Did you start off writing your own music or did you start off doing covers?

(If covers, were they covers of inspiration bands?)

Song
What's the story behind this song?

Who came up with the idea for this song?

What does this song mean for each of you?

What inspired the lyrics for this?

Did you find it easy to write these lyrics or was it difficult?

Was it difficult because the feeling/meaning behind this song means a lot to you?

Video

Would you like to see any particular images/ideas/themes in the video?

What do you think of our idea?

Do you have any other ideas for the video?

Other

Where do you see the band going in the future?

Would you like to be signed?

If yes, major label or independent label?

Are there any bands you would like to tour with?


here is the full interview with As Gods

Corrisponding Features

Just like Britney Spears' obvious link to her album, advertisement, and music video. We have also planned to have a cohesive link to each three. The advertisement and CD cover  has matching writing and stars on both covers shows the link, the use of lighting represents the stars in the music video. The theme of the CD is  noticeable of the circus, this is shown  in the video by the setting, and her being in the spot light as the ring master.

Red Hot Chili Peppers' genre is rock which corresponds more with the band that i have decided to do for the music video. These correspond, it also very eclectic, it reflects a rock band as it is very graphic and memerable. It has the coloour scheme in common with the music video, in parts of the music video it is very blue. The poster have the typical red, blacks and white colouring of a rock band the blue give it a more defined and unique shaddow effect. It also has the male gaze with the woman and an out line of her breasts.



Editing

My group and i have finished filming and can complete the editing process. The places that we used for the setting are:

- A park

- A Church and Church yard
- Bear pit, which is and underground walk way in the centre of town.
- The Horn Bridge

- Stokes Croft.

To edit our music video we shall be using iMovie. Our group preferred to use this technology than Final Cut as we have more experience using iMovie than any other editing technology. We had some complications when trying to upload some footage off of one of the camera's which was tedious and annoying as it delayed us, when starting to edit.

My group and I have also used garage band to split the song, when we were using Frozen the song was about 6 minutes long so we decided to split the song and listen to it to decide how the narrative would work. After struggling to put together a long enough song we decided to switch to the other bands song and came up with a better and just the right amount of time for the narrative. 

This was our first idea for a mock up. We didn't like it because it looks messy and doesn't flow well.

Editing Process, deciding what we like.



We decided not to have the logo on the poster in the end and just write As Gods with the font that we have used on the front cover of the CD because using the logo made the poster look bulk and it also did not go with the back ground of the picture.



Me and Nick

This is Nick and I editing are music video and up loading some of the footage. It was very tedious editing and we had to be very meticulous to the detail making sure we did not get one bit of detail out of place.

We got feedback throughout our editing proccess, our teacher said that the shots did not match the pace of the music and that it was becoming a film, we cut down the shots to the beat, this made it more edgy.