Evaluation Q.4 – How were Media technologies used in your music video?

Evaluation Q.4 – How were Media technologies used in your music video?

The major technology we used was the editing suite Final Cut Pro. This allowed us to cut shots to the beat of the song, and create a timeline for our music video. The first important tool we used was the opacity tool; this tool allowed us to show two shots at the same time and fade one into the other, this helped us show that Caitlin was inside Matt’s head. The eeriness of the song made it impossible to have lots of fast cuts so the speed tool in Final Cut Pro was also very important. By slowing nearly every shot down from its original speed, we could make the cuts of each shot match the beat of the song; the song was too slow to leave the shots at their original pace so this particular tool was very important. For all shots, we added a special filter to give each one a certain effect. The filter we used was a pastel style, we drained the color for Caitlin’s shots in the park to give a more grainy effect, we found this was quite abstract and this summarized Caitlin’s character. The tools we used to move from shot to shot were the cross dissolve tool and the pen tool. Because a lot of our shots were on top of each other and we had used the opacity tool, the pen tool allowed us to pinpoint where we wanted particular shots to start to fade off the screen, and leaving another shot underneath it meant one shot faded into the next one smoothly, for example when Caitlin and Matthew are on the stairs. The cross dissolve tool was one of many dissolves we could have used, we positioned this at the end of the shot and after rendering the file, we saw that this was useful as it allowed us to cut from one shot to another smoothly and effortlessly.

Another program we used was Motion. This program is similar to Adobe Photoshop but it allows you to achieve very specific filters and styles on Final Cut Pro files. We used it for the performance side of our video. The shots we had weren’t too bad, but they needed something extra to give them a more unconventional style. We added a spotlight on every performance shot of the band, either in the corners of the image or the center. This gave Matt are more important stance in the shot, showing he is a key character as the light was shed on him rather than the other band member, the fact he was lead singer helped to show his importance too. The best thing about these spotlights was the fact that we could have them any color so we chose a midnight blue, with the brightness fading out into the corner of the page making the shadow darker and darker. We felt that a midnight blue effect worked very well with the main lyrics in the song “dark side of the moon”,” especially seeing as though these lyrics were always lip synced in the performance shots and the effect was therefore when the words were being sung.

Finally for the media technologies were the equipment we used. Firstly was the camera, an HD ready standard video camera with a micro SD memory card. The quality was satisfactory, but we were impressed with the fact we could record and take photos with the same camera. Either way, we managed to get all of the footage we needed and that’s what matters. We also had the Fig Rig camera stand. This was a handheld device which allowed us to record shots of unique and different angles for the performance side of our video. This was extremely effective for close ups and getting shots from high and low angles, it was easier to use this than to record such shots using just a handheld camera, and we found it very useful. We also used the recording studio in college for our album cover photography. The studio had a black screen we could take good band shots of and this is seen in the front cover of our digi-pack. There is another recording studio in college where we shot our band footage and this was useful as the equipment such as the guitars and drums were already there so all we had to do was play. It was a conventional style band room and this was something we said we didn’t want to achieve, but in the end it worked well to mix the two styles of unconventional narrative and conventional performance for our music video. We used the tripod for the camera on a number of shots such as the panning shot, it gave us a straight and fixed image to work with and was important for a number of medium and long shot sin our piece.

For our CD cover we used Adobe Photoshop Elements 8, a program which allowed us to player images and create specific effects such as shadowing and filters on pictures to create a classy and professional piece of work. We filtered the images of the band to give them a more abstract and less conventional effect, and also used screenshots from our video and put them in Photoshop to edit them and use them as backgrounds for the front and back covers. This was a good idea as it helped us a keep a consistency about all the pieces of work we had produced. Had we not done this the digi-pack would have looked random and out of place compared to the music video, it is important to get a clear link between the CD cover and the music video itself.

Directors Commentary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COZrio-erYk&context=C20760ADOEgsToPDskJrMp6Hm7Z7m66ia_kTzqVT

Evaluation Q.3 – What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Q.3 – What have you learnt from your audiencefeedback?

For our audience feedback, we decided to use the social networking site Facebook, as this is the base of millions of people’s opinions on different things. By using this we felt we were sure to get plenty of different views and this was the case as shown in the screenshots and explanations below:

Screenshot 1.

The first thing to notice about this shot is the fact that 9people clicked the “Like” button on the video, shown by the little thumb. This waspositive but it was the comments we were interested in. the first comment onthis shot says weird, by a friend of ours called Joanna Brown, she thenelaborates this to “good weird” showing her approval of the video. We then hadmore positive feedback from Jessica and Bethany, Bethany says “strange but deadgood” which is the second comment of this nature. We can take two things fromthis, on the one hand these comments about the video being strange could meanit is confusing and people aren’t grasping the fact that there is one lunaticgetting into Matt’s head, and then the narrative should be clearer in order forit to make sense. However, we could also take pride in the fact that if peopleare saying our music video is “weird” then we have achieved our aim of making thevideo disturbing, and have displayed our representation of an instable mind ina successful way. We preferred to take the comments about the video being weirdas positive as we feel it highlights the fact our video is unconventional,different and we overall achieved our aims of making an eerie and abstractvideo.

Screenshot 2.

In this screenshot, we have two more comments, one fromHarry Slater says the video is “brilliant” which we found positive but we werelooking for a more analytical comment like the one from Adam below. Adam was ofthe opinion that we did not need the parts with Caitlin at the beginning as itwas not needed. From this we feel as if our piece was not clear enough, we didnot put the point that Caitlin was possessed across in a clear way and thiscaused confusion as to why these shots were there. It was disappointing becausewe felt we were clear in the way the narrative was put across but it seems thiswas not the case. Adam also felt the video got boring and wanted us to changethe mood of the song through the video. We felt this was a fair comment as thesong does get quite boring; however, it was hard for us to do any more than wedid because of the beat of the song. The shots had to be slowed down in orderto keep consistent with the cuts and beats of the song, and the only way tochange the mood would be to speed the shots up and stop the video being aseerie, which would have gone against our aims anyway. Adam does point out thathe liked the effect we put on the band shots using  motion as have a lot of people including theteachers, we have received a lot of positive comments on thst which is very pleasing.The last point mad eon this shot is that Adam wanted a specific reference to “DarkSide of the Moon” which is a good point. We did lip sync which we found was agood effect, but he wanted a more obvious link to these lyrics with his ideadoing some filming under moonlight or using a moonlight effect which we think wouldhave been excellent. Linking the words to the context or setting of the song issomething we will take into account next time.



Screenshot 3.

This third set of comments of Facebook contains positive feedbackand some constructive criticism we can take a lot from.  The first comment from Peter highlights howgood the editing was which is positive as we have had a number of comments aboutthis and the effects we used really were one of our strongest points in thismusic video. Peter is of the opinion that Caitlin with the make-up and theshots of her are random and this is worrying because he is the second person tosay that these shots are ont needed. This again makes us feel as if we have notmade the narrative clear enough and the video therefore comes across asconfusing. Tim and Ryan both share the opinion that the editing is good but theywould have used some transitions between clips instead of the fading techniquewe used. This was an interesting point as we didn’t think to do this, but avalid one as we’re sure this would have had a good effect. Later in his commentRyan highlights the fact that the first minute with Caitlin is once again a bit“weird” suggesting it does not fit well with the rest of the video. The factthat 3 people have picked up on the same point illustrates that this is a validpoint, maybe Caitlin’s involvement could have been made clearer, and thenarrative should have been laid out in a more simple way, this is the mainpoint we have got from our feedback thus far.

Screenshot 4.

On this final screen shot of our Facebook link to the musicvideo, we have Lucy, who liked the “weird” bit which seemed to be the maintopic of conversation on this link. She said she liked it because it works wellwith the song, which was the reason we included it and this also met our aim sowere happy with this comment and didn’t feel as down about the earlier negativecomments. We did include it because of the lyrics of the song and so it wasgood she noticed this, hopefully more people will. The last comment on thevideo came from our friend from college Tom Doyle. He said he liked the way weedited, and the way we ran the performance next to the narrative, this was oneof our favourite bits of the video so we were glad this was mentioned in theend. His only constructive critisicism was that the lip syncing was slightlyoff which was a fair comment, and one which will be taken into account nexttime, like all the comments.

Evaluation Q2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

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

When it came to designing the album artwork, we gained inspiration from popular contemporary bands, like Coldplay with their album ‘Life in Technicolor II, The Kooks with their album ‘Inside in the Inside Out’ and Oasis with their album ‘Definitely Maybe’. The albums had the band members in the cover posing in a certain way that would suit the style of the band and album. We picked out different things from each of these albums to create our own album cover in a diverse way. In the Coldplay album, the way the moving graphic colours interacted with the band member was very attracting. It also linked the album name to its actual image of ‘Technicolor’. The Kooks and the Oasis album showed the band members in simple settings with their instruments.

Our final front cover of the CD cover shows the band members inside a hand replicating the shape of the moon. The album name was ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ so in order to try and convey this in a new unique interesting way, we felt by creating shadows from the hand image could recreate the moon. We felt doing this would be better than having an actual moon in the reason that having a moon could be seen as generic and we wanted to do something new and special. The font used had a 70s, psychedelic style to it which I feel showed the relation with the period of time the song was released. The back cover shows the door which was featured in the music video. The door was very significant as it represented the entrapment of the lead singer’s mind. The public would notice the similarity and in a way this would promote the album, the music video and overall the actual song, creating a promotional synergy. So, realistically this style of font should continue in the rest of the album and the poster in order to signify the song’s genre. The feel of the ancillary texts should all be dark and symbolistic.

Our CD Front Cover- Dark Side of the Moon

Our CD Back Cover-Dark Side of the Moon

The poster featured the band members again posing with their instruments. The black and grey colours retained the dark symbolism of the album name ‘Dark Side of the Moon’. The font kept the 70s, psychedelic theme. We felt it was also important to include websites where a viewer could purchase the album, which is the main objective of an Album Poster. 

Advertising Poster

 As for the music video itself, the music video was a dark unique representation showing insanity of the main character in this narrative and performance piece of the 70s psychedelic themed Pink Floyd song, Brain Damage. In order to create this type of ambience, the clips were slowed down and had coloured filters which showed the differences in reality. The video told the story from the lyrics in order to inform the viewer the message and emotion connected that may not have been easy for them to identify with just the song itself.

Overall, Music videos and its ancillary texts have an objective to promote the song and the artist’s image which I feel we have definitely fulfilled. Also, giving the video a more modern approach, this was done with the costume and the locations of the video, but still retaining its initial 70s retro fundamentals.

Raph Jims

Evaluation Q.1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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

In todays music industry, music videos have the purpose to promote an singer/artists music and now it seems they are steadily becoming for entertainment purposes. There is now a big demand for big theatrical music videos with huge complicated performances and amazing new special effects. As the video-editing program was Final Cut Pro, which is now certified as professional video editing software because it has been used in many big blockbuster films like ‘The Social Network’, there should be no reason why the standard of this music video should not be equal to that.

Our music video contained clear elements of a performance and a narrative that was illustrative, meaning it corresponded with the message with the song lyrics which a lot of music videos do have today. The song is about the thoughts of a mentally ill person, so we thought it would be expected to story tell the person’s life, in this case a female antagonist character, in a chronological fashion. The Star of the band, which was the lead singer, was connected to this female character, which we showed with cross cuts throughout depicting another parallel element to the piece. Examples of this in videos now are ‘Brick by Boring Brick’ by Paramore and ‘Hey there, Delilah’ by the Plain White Ts. Rock videos contain strong amounts of performances in the videos, where the video is either all performance or just the majority performance with some narrative. Our video contains an equal mixture and also towards the end, the performance becomes a part of the narrative as the narrative character interacts with the lead singer, which we felt was quite creative and unique.

Our music video was inspired by many 70’s artists for example ‘The Beatles’. We felt it would be interesting to bring a more modernised theme to a 70’s psychedelic themed song, but still retaining its trance like atmosphere. The coloured filters in the video, created a 70’s psyschedelic feel to it which was also enhanced by the pace throughout the video which was quite slower than many videos today. So in a way we challenged the conventions of todays music with the song choice. However, the original music video to Brain Damage by Pink Floyd’s narrative was disjuncture and it contained a political message of Government corruption which was very common for a video to have in that time period. In todays Pop musical culture, music videos with disjuncture and a political message is quite rare. Few bands like Radiohead still favour this type. Overall in order for our music video to appeal to our large target audience, having an illustrative narrative in our video is advisory. Although there was no signs of a political message in the video, we felt it was quite important to still show its deeper representations of insanity.

Raph Jims

FInal Digipack - Complete

Front Cover

Back Cover

Billy Greenall.

Final CD Advert - Complete.

Pink Floyd - Brain Damage - Complete.