Will Pickford

Evaluation Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Tumblr was a site used a lot for all the posts we write about during research, planning, production and evaluation. It is the home of all of my work and I post on consistently all year. Tumblr is a social media site used for sharing blog posts, pictures, videos etc. It is an easy site to navigate my blog as I can use hashtags to filter all my work so it is easily found. I have used the hashtag #A2 for all my work this year so it doesn’t get mixed with last years, and the either the hashtags #research, #planning, #production, #evaluation to split my work up into these 4 stages. You can also share links to SlideShare, Prezi and YouTube videos. It is also where I posted the link to my final main task via YouTube and my other ancillary texts as images.

Prezi is a site I used a few times which is similar to PowerPoint where you create slides but is more advanced and works a bit differently. It is used as a more creative method of posting things on my blog instead of just simple text posts. You can also import images, videos, custom text to add cooler effect to your work. It is also very easy put onto Tumblr via a single web link which makes it very easy to view when someone is looking at your blog.

We used iPhones when filming our music video to play the song so lip syncing looked accurate and good. We didn’t really use them for much else except for props in our music video to show our actor on the phone to his girlfriend. Other than these things iPhones/iPads weren’t really used in any stages of making our music video.

We used computers for research and editing. The research stage was to find out information and post any of it on our blogs via the school computers or home computers. Each computer had a hard drive on each computer with lots of free space where we could store all of our clips. However this is sometimes a struggle as it means we must work from the same computer for all of our editing.

We filmed all of our footage with a Nikon D3200 camera. This was very good as it is a very good camera with great quality even when fully zoomed in. These cameras were easy to attach to a tripod and film smoother shots. Fortunately, I have my own camera the same as the ones offered at school, this meant we didn’t have to sign out a camera we could just borrow a tripod and shoulder mount from school. This was good for us as there wasn’t always a camera available from school as other groups would have been filming. We also used 2 lenses when filming with this camera, a standard 18 – 55mm lens for shots that required zoom and a higher quality 35mm lens that couldn’t zoom. We mainly used the 33mm lens as it was better quality and wasn’t too zoomed in or out. Both of the lenses had a manual and automatic focus button so we could get the best quality on our subject and even include push & pull focuses if we wanted to. This is one camera with the 18-55mm lens and on with the 35mm lens.

Premiere Pro was the main software we used during the editing stage of our music video. We also used it in editing our 2 focus groups as well as our main music video. It is a very advanced software that offers so many different editing effects and is very flexible to get what you want. As we used in at AS, we were a lot more advanced this year in using it. We also used sites like YouTube to help develop our knowledge of the site. It is very easy to use with a simple layout and it is very easy to cut clips, and move them around the video. It is a software that is used by many editors in the professional business so we were very lucky to be able to use it when editing our music video. Our final music video as a number of different edits in it including time lapse, reverse speed, colour correction, slow motion, jump cuts etc. Without Premiere Pro, we couldn’t have edited our music video in such a way to make it look so great with fantastic edits. Not many other software’s offers an advanced editing software like Premiere Pro so we had the luxury of using it during editing. We spent a number of hours during the editing stage playing around on Premiere Pro to a try see what we liked best and what we could do. The whole editing stage took a number of weeks as it is a lot of footage and sometimes we didn’t have all of our footage to edit with. However we all worked together on Premiere Pro and all shared our ideas and techniques to make our music video.

Photoshop was the software that I used for all of the putting together of my ancillary texts. Again it is made by the same makers as Premiere Pro meaning that it is a good and reliable site. It is easy to use and there are thousands of tutorials on YouTube to follow and make your images look really good. I have used Photoshop for a number of years in GCSE media and AS Photography so I had a good knowledge of how it worked. It is easy to manipulate layers and only work on them so it is very easy to come make my ancillary texts. You can change the look of the photos by changing brightness & contrast, levels, black & white, selective colour etc. This is similar to using colour correction on Premiere Pro as it changes the look of the shot and makes it look a lot better. During half-term, I didn’t have access to Photoshop as it is only installed on the school computers meaning I couldn’t edit my ancillary texts when at home. Fortunately there was a 7 day free trial for Photoshop I could get on my laptop meaning I could edit m ancillary texts the same I would if I was at school. Photoshop wasn’t really used at all in the making of our music video only in the editing stage of my digipak and advert.

I used google mainly for the research stage of the project. I used it to research other music videos, theorists and any information I needed and a hub to access any other sites like YouTube, Tumblr, Prezi, Slideshare etc. Google is a very reliable site that everyone uses as it is simple and easy to work.

YouTube was a site I used in research / planning and the production stage of making my music video. During research I used it to look up other music videos made by the artists and to get an insight to what makes a good music video. I analysed 3 music videos during the research stage of making the music video and used YouTube to find these videos. You can also use YouTube links and paste the on Tumblr and the video will load on your blog without needing to go onto the actual YouTube site. We also published a lot of things onto the Chew Valley Media Page during the course of making our music video. First we pasted our first focus group where we asked people questions about what they think of our idea. Next we posted our storyboard animatic so people could get a brief idea of what our music video will look like through drawings. We then posted our finished music video after we had edited it and received some feedback. We then posted our second focus group asking people what they thought of our finished music video. Finally we posted our director’s commentary telling the audience why we filmed each shot and what we done to film it. YouTube is a very popular site made by Google with millions of people using it. Our music video is not publically on YouTube for everyone to see which is exciting as anyone can watch it at any time. The only problem with YouTube is that when posting a long it could take a long time to export and actually publish.

Finally, we used Survey Monkey during the research/planning stage to find out what people’s views were of music videos and what they thought of our idea. On Survey Monkey you can create a survey with a number of questions using different answering types (e.g. multiple choice, typed answer, tick more than one box etc.) This was a very easy site to use as you could send the link via email and to answer you do not need to sign up and you can answer anonymously. So we sent this email to all the tutor groups in our year and some teachers, this meant we had answers from adults and teenagers. The only negative about Survey Monkey is that because we were using it as free members we could only put a max number of 10 questions into our survey, so we only asked the important questions so this wasn’t too much of a problem.

Evaluation Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Overall, our music video received great feedback from all of our audience members. Feedback was received by friends and teachers telling us about our music video as well as a filmed focus group and comments left on our YouTube video. Our friends and teachers gave us mostly positive feedback with very little criticism. Everyone loved the cutting on the beat and the narrative of the story. We filmed a second focus group to get some feedback from different people and asked them some simple feedback. One of our audience members mentioned that liked the time lapse because it was something a bit different and it kept in interested in the music video. He also commented on the cutting on the bet at the start with the background changing as it was done very well and was entertaining. Another audience member mentioned that she liked how we added a camera effect on the videos that are dated in the past. She mentioned how this clearly showed that it was how their relationship was in the past and looking back on memories which looked very good. She also mentions how it is good that we consistently cut on the beat to keep a nice rhythm throughout our music video and keep the audience interested. Our final audience member in our focus group commented on how he liked the use of colour correction to make our shots looks a lot better and more professional. He also commented on how our mise-en-scene matched the genre of the song and fitted the lyrics. Finally he mentioned how our lip syncing was accurate and looked real. Having a focus group helped us to gain an understanding of what our target audience of teenagers enjoyed about our music video. We also used comments off of YouTube and have received a few comments about our music video. Somebody commented saying he liked the camera movement, locations, production design, interpretation of music, cutting on the bet and motion. This comment is very brief but covers the main aspects of what we were trying to achieve in our music video. Having these comments is very positive as we wanted our music video to entertain and be interesting to watch. The other comment is more detailed with lots of positives. Again his main point is how we consistently had cutting on the beat which clearly entertained our audience throughout. He mentioned ow we had a clear narrative which was easy to follow and this is positive as we really wanted to show how this couple’s relationship is breaking and how good it used to be. He also commented on our use of locations and how they work well together. Also our music video received 10 likes and no dislikes which is very positive.

I didn’t receive any comments on my digipak or album advert but did receive verbal feedback from my teachers ans classmates. They really liked the use of having both actors showing on both the digipak and advert and thought that it promoted the music video and album really well. The use of extra information about the record label on both the digipak and advert made it look very professional and appealing. Finally they thought the use of big bold titles really stood out to them so they clearly knew what the album was called at first glance.

We didn’t receive many negative comments about our music video however we did receive some constructive criticism on comments left and in our focus group. In our second focus group, we asked them what they didn’t like as much in our music video. One person mentioned how he thought that the effect of our actor fading in and out of shot at the end didn’t really fit the rest o the music video and maybe something more relevant could have been put there. Another person said that she thought some of our still shots didn’t fit in with the rest of the music video as the camera was constantly moving so on the still shots it contrasted a bit with this. However it wasn’t a clear error just could have been thought about more. The last person on our focus group said how he thinks that some shots could have had more time put into them as they are a bit shaky and maybe could have re-filmed or corrected the error in the editing stage. Our final negative comments were also on the comment let on our music video. He mentioned how we could have thought better about lighting as one important shot of the girl lip syncing is poorly lit and maybe we should have re-filmed it. Other than these we didn’t receive any other negative comments which we are very happy with as we want the music video to entertain.

I didn’t receive many negative comments on my digipak or advert as most were positive and there wasn’t a platform where an audience could directly comment. My classmates commented on how the digipak looks a bit repetitive with only having pictures of the boy and girl actors on it. Also they said how on the album cover the image of the 2 actors could be bigger to stand out more to an audience.

In the future, we will definitely take more time in the production stage and review our shots often to make sure they are all up to the standard that we want them to be. This also includes concentrating more on mise-en-scene and camera angles/movement when filming. For example our lighting in some shots wasn’t very good and the camera was shaky so try and use better artificial lighting or film on another day and use different equipment to keep the camera still. When it comes to the editing stage of making our music video, in future we will also take more time and make sure every shot is where we want it to be and making sure all the shots used work well with each other and fit the genre of the music video and the lyrics. We could do this by receiving feedback during the editing stage so we know what our target audience like and dislike about out music video and we could change it. Finally, we could try and keep the shots consistent so that they don’t ever contrast with each other which could confuse our audience or make them lose interest. We could do this by consistently having the camera moving or don’t do any still shots for too long which could look boring to watch.

In future I will have a lot more photo shoots to get the perfect images to use on my ancillary texts. I will think more about clothing to make it consistent and the camera angles I will use to get the perfect shot. I will also think about what other pictures I can take which aren’t only of the male and female actors. Finally in the future I will make a number of adverts and digipaks to decide which one I think looks best and receive audience feedback on which one they like the most.

The comments have taught me that the production and editing stage of making a music video requires a lot of time to get the perfect shots that suit you and your audience. The planning of getting all your actors and equipment needs to be organised to ensure that the filming day is production and efficient. The editing stage requires a lot of thinking and working together to fit the shot taken into the best places of the song. Also, during the editing stage you could receive feedback so it is easy to change anything your audience doesn’t like or include more of what they really like.

The comments have taught me that during the production and editing stage of making a digipak and advert it requires taking good quality photos that suit the advert and will look appealing to an audience if they see it on a shelf. This is done by using a good camera and doing a number of photo shoots until you get the right photos. The editing stage requires time and effort to make it look right. Edits may need to be done on Photoshop to make it look better and this takes time and precision.

Evaluation Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Having a brand identity when making media products is very effective and important. Creating one throughout your media product is very important as the audience can recognise a piece of work before even reading what it is. Many artists do it and it creates a good link between ancillary texts and products like music videos. Normally it is done through colour or actors or certain themes shown throughout the products. Audience members can notice products if it is adverts or CD’s at places due to how it is arranged or a theme/actor/main colour used.

I have created a brand identity by always including the main actors on any ancillary texts. This means that the audience will recognise these actors and link it back to the music video. On the main covers of my ancillary texts I have used large images of my actors so they stand out and catch the viewer’s eye when they see them. This is a very obvious brand identity as it is the main thing that the audience notice when looking at all of my products.

As shown in my ancillary texts and video screenshot above, the 2 main actors are features a number of times in throughout all of my products.

Another brand identity I have used is using a consistent colour of all of the fonts throughout my ancillary texts and music video. However this is less a factor in my music video as it doesn’t contain much text. As also shown in my ancillary texts above, the font colour of the titles and text is the same to keep the consistent beige colour.

A final brand identity is having the title of the album / music video and artist always at the top of the product in a bold font. At the beginning of my music video it is shown briefly so the audience know what the song is. This brand identity is also shown in the images above as the main title at the top of the screen followed by the artist and also the image below of the opening shot of my music video.

My digipak design will sell my song as it has clear links to the music video so the audience will be interested. The design of my digipak catches the audience’s eye and the black and white background of the front cover shows how significant the main actor is. I have used the brand identity of including my actors in all my products in my digipak and included at least one of the actors on each page. This again shows their significance in the music video and shows their relationship through the digipak by images of them together and apart. The CD cover of the couple together being in black and white links to the video where shots of them together are in black and white. This will also sell our music video as our audience can create a link between our digipak and music video which they find interesting and it becomes more entertaining to watch. "

My advert will sell my digipak as it is clearly advertised to the audience on the front. The use of a large bold title similar to the one on my digipak allows the audience to make a clear link and will remember the digipak so will buy it. My digipak consists of images of my two actors and the advert is one image of the boy and the girl dominating the whole page. The advert states it is available on many different platforms (e.g. CD, vinyl and digital) so makes the audience more likely to buy it. Also it states it is now available for pre order so the audience know they buy it if interested. Having 5 different companies (Clash, NME, Metro, Independent and Q) all rate the album 5 stars really attracts in the audience. I have made this information stand out in the centre of the page so the audience immediately see it when looking at the advert. As 5 stars is the best rating you can get and 5 major companies have rated it this then it will definitely sell the digipak to the audience.

The use of bright pictures used in my advert and digipak link to the pop genre of quite upbeat songs and music videos. The actors clearly look serious and intense in all the images which links to the music video and the pop music videos normally about love and relationships. The digipak and advert clearly show that these 2 actors are in some sort of relationship and many of The Chainsmokers songs are about relationships and love. So the style of the band is normally around love so the digipak and advert match this style by showing some sort of relationship between the boy and girl. The genre of the music video (pop) consists of very quick shots with a lot of narrative performance. Many of the band’s songs tell a story about someone or a relationship and this can be shown through the use or narrative performance which is very popular for telling the story of a song. The digipak and advert showing images of the couple and making links to a relationship and them being apart help to tell the story that the song “Closer” is portraying. The shot either side of the CD on the digipak of the girl walking away from the boy tells the story that this couple are no longer together and the black and white shot of them walking links to the video of how happy they once were in the past.

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

As pointed out in Andrew Goodwin’s points about typical music video conventions, I tried to follow all of these when planning, filming and editing my music video. By having a narrative based music video, linking the lyrics to visuals was a lot easier to follow as we could demonstrate what the singer is saying through how our actors act. The use of mise-en-scene by using more dull settings when the actors are alone and more interesting and happy settings when they are together. We decided not to include voyeuristic treatment of the female body as we felt it wouldn’t suit our music video and was inappropriate. Also we used close ups which was also pointed out in Andrew Goodwin’s Theory which is a demand from the record label to promote the artist. Shown below is also an example of the use of close ups from Ed Sheeran’s music video “Shape of You”

We would link the music to the visuals by speeding up or slowing down our editing. By having faster cuts and quicker camera movement, the audience could recognise that it is a more upbeat part of the song linking to the editing. By cutting on the beat, it created a smoother effect to our music video and gave it a more professional look about it as well as making it more entertaining for the audience.

Genre conventions are important in music videos as most pop music videos are similar or linked in some way. Most narrative pop music videos are typically about relationships/friendships so this is why we decided to follow the typical genre conventions and keep our music video simple. The use of having 2 characters, one male and one female, meant we could use the typical storyline of their relationship. This is similar to the actual music video of closer as that is about a relationship. Also as many pop songs these days are about love we would match this by having a narrative that fits what the song is about. Also the genre conventions of pop is about fashion and props as well so we dressed our characters in fashionable clothing ad also used props like iPhones to show this more clearly. Generally, the characters in pop music videos tend to be young so this is why we used two, 18 year old characters in our music video, this also appeals to our target audience as the characters are of a similar age.

For my digipak, I followed the conventions of having the title big and bold and an image of my main actor to promote the album and digipak. I have made sure that on the front cover the name of the album, artist and actor featuring are the main focuses. By having the boy sat on the bench as the main photo it makes it the main focus of attention as well as having the album title in big bold writing at the top of the page. Below is the front cover of my digipak which shows the main actor and also is Lana Del Rey’s front cover of her digipak for the album “Born To Die”. Lana Del Rey’s is a popular pop digipak and also follows the conventions of promoting the artist and having a big bold title.

On the back cover, I included an image of the other actor with the other song titles also on the back. Again the actor is the main focus of the back cover by dominating the photo leaving a smaller space for other song names and extra information. I have included a typical barcode which is found on most digipaks to add a more professional look to it with also including information about the institution and where the album was made. I used the famous institution of Sony Music’s, Columbia Records so it looks realistic and professional. Also having the artist singed to Sony Music will attract an audience as they’re known for being huge with having artists like Beyoncé signed on their record label Columbia.

On the other 4 pages of my digipak, I have used simple images of the artists on their own and one shot of the couple together. For the covers wither side of the CD, I have added an effect on the photos too make it look more interesting and it is one shot of the girl walking away with the boy the other side looking at her. In the middle of these 2 shots, I have one of the couple walking holding hands and this is to show how their relationship can be like but the other 2 show them apart. The final spare page is a simple shot of the boy on his own walking towards the camera. These all follow the conventions of promoting your artist through multiple media texts.

On my advert, I have included the main conventions of having an image of my 2 actors as the main image. It also has a large title at the top of the screen of the name of the album. I made the typical conventions of title, release date, extra information stand out with also a copy of the front page of my digipak so people know what the album looks like when they see this advert. I didn’t directly include when the album was out but I stated t is available for pre-order but did not include a specific date. I did not include any social media accounts which could be seen as a convention however I included how you can buy the album (e.g. cd, vinyl and digital). My digipak has the name of the actor (William Pickford) however I didn’t include it on my advert as I felt it wasn’t necessary. I included information about the record label and a website for the music institution as well as the normal copyright information found on adverts and digipak. Below is my album advert with the main actors as the main focus with a large title and any extra information, also below is Olly Murs’ album advert with him as the main focus and a big title with any extra information in a smaller font.

Annotated Script

This is a copy of the songs lyrics and we have annotated it as a group where we will have different shots. The arrows are to indicate where in the song it will be and we have gave a rough indication of what shot it is going to be and what of.

Storyboards

Album Advert Making

Firstly i added my main image in and made sure it fit the page. I made the page a4 so it was proper size and didn’t stretch when i printed it. The image required colour changes to make the background more black so i could just add a further black background as the photo wasn’t big enough.

I then added in my main title and the artist name. This was simple s i just lined it up from one side to the other and centred the text. The text colour is the same as the colour on the digipak to keep some consistency between the advert and digipak. I made sure these stood out at the top of the page and dominated the advert along with the image.

I then added in a copy of my digipak front cover by saving it s an image and then importing it. This was simple and i positioned it to stand out on the page but not dominate over everything else.

Finally i added in all release dates, reviews and anyextra information on separate text layers. This was again very simple as i could position them where i wanted and the size i wanted them to be.

Digipak Making

Firstly i made my front cover on a separate Photoshop document and then imported it onto this document as i had the template. To make the front cover i had several layers and then placed them where i wanted them to be. I made sure it was good quality so i mde the image very big when importing it onto Photoshop.

I then made my back cover also on seperate document and added all the text into it on the seperate document. This meant that it was good quality when importing it onto the other document.

I then added all my other layers in as they didn’t have as many layers on them. These were also made on separate documents then merged down but didn’t require a much editing on them.

Finally i added some dark blue borders in in between the pages. This is for the neck’s of the digipak and i added text of the album name and the artist. I made these all the same colour to add consistency on my digipak and the colour worked very well with everything else in my digipak.

Having the template meant i could get all of my images in the correct places and cod scale them right. I zoomed in to mke sure they were all lined up correctly and it looked professional.

Ancillary Texts: Album Advert

On my advert i stuck to my plan and had everything the same in the same places. My plan was a clear structure of what i wanted to do and i had the right images for it. It required some editing in Photoshop to change the colours of the main image to make the background more black. Everything else ws imported in Photoshop including the texts. However i changed the font of the main title as i thought it looked a lot better and suited the advert a lot more than a chunky font. All the extra information makes it look professional and the reviews attract the audience because if they see it and see it has 5 starts on a number of different sites they will buy it.

Ancillary Texts: Digipak

This is my finished Digipak, it is similar to my plan however i changed 2 of the pages as i thought they fit better. I changed the back cover to an image of the female actor as she was not as included as the male even though they share a similar role in the music video. I felt having her on one of the main pages with the male on the front cover works better as the digipak isn’t overloaded with images of the boy. I also changed the DVD page as i didn’t have any images of the couple together and that is a significant factor of the music video. So having an image of them walking together looking happy worked better than a close up of their hands. All the other pages i kept the same however turned the female t look the other way on the two spare pages to show that their relationship is breaking.

I edited my digipak using Photoshop and made each layer separately on Photoshop and then put them onto a digipak template. This was simple as i am experienced on Photoshop so i merged all the layers then put them on as 6 different images onto Photoshop.

Album Advert Plan

Digipak Plan

Final Music Video - Closer (The Chainsmokers)

This is our focus group after publishing our music video. It asks the questions of what is good and bad, and how we can improve it.

We showed 3 audience members our music video again and asked them 3 simple questions. 1. What do you like about our music video? 2. What do you not like about our music video? 3. What can we improve in our music video?

These 3 questions cover the main topics of whats good and bad and their opinions on it. All of their feedback was positive and they found it hard to think of negatives to give which was a very positive response. Also there wasn’t any big things to improve on meaning we did a great job in producting and making a music video.

Production Day 4

On our final day of production we filmed at Chew Magna just to film some of the last shots we needed in our music video. Chew Magna is a beautiful place that isn’t too busy and has a range of shops and pubs creating great mise-en-scene. On this final day of production, we only had our male actor so made it harder to film everything we needed.

This is a shot filmed in Chew Magna that we used in our music video.

We also decided to film a time lapse in Chew Magna as it has a fairly budy highstreet and would look good in our film. We set the camera on a tripod and filmed 5 minutes worth of footage and condensed it down into 10 seconds.