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.