Evaluation // Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak and advertisement)?

Personally, I don't think the connection between my main product and my ancillary products is very strong. 

I think some elements work well but some do not.

The use of pictures of the boys show the connection between the three products but in some places I don't think I've added enough to make the connection stronger.

I realise now, after creating them, that there's a lot to understand when making ancillary products, and that you really have to know your main product to create strong connection between them.

http://vimeo.com/32960645 
The video

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

For the genre of our music video, we chose Indie. This particular genre doesn't really have a fixed video style, although they do tend to be mainly performance based, with other elements added.

With our video, we didn't challenge the conventions of the genre and we didn't exactly stray from them either, we just added our own twist to it. In my opinion, I think we used far more cuts and costume/location changes than most videos of this genre.

We had quite a few influences for our video, the main ones being You Me At Six and Two Door Cinema Club (the band we used as a base).

We chose You Me At Six because we loved their camera work. I think they use a wide variety and it works well with the lyrics and the overall genre 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na7dwYv0Y-I

Throughout this video, there are constant changes in the camera, with close ups of the lead singer and of the instruments (like ours).

With Two Door Cinema Club, I think we used elements from most of their videos because they work so well with the genre. In particular we used this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PorW3y5n1w

We used the element of rapid cuts, but tones them down slightly, although there were small sections where we did use rapid cuts.

We also took the element of wearing suits from The Wombats video 'Techno Fan'

With my ancillary products, I personally don't think they match as well as what they should do, but that is purely down to lack of proper in depth research, though they do work well.

Evaluation // Question 3: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? (part 2)

Other pieces of technologies I used were video cameras, memory cards and flip cameras.

Without these vital pieces of technology, we wouldn't of been able to create the music video. 

Without the memory cards all our footage would have been lost and, actually, we wouldn't have been able to film without them. Also with the memory cards, if footage was lost from our hard drive, we would always be able to find it on there (as we advised not to deleted stuff off them in case we needed to go back to it).

It's always handy to have a spare!  

Without the video cameras, we would never have been able to film in the same high quality as what we did. Also, these particular cameras allowed us to view our footage on a small screen so would could focus clearly on the shots and know right then and there what changes we had to make.

These cameras make you feel all professional!

The film cameras we used allowed us to film quick documentaries and conduct small interviews for feedback. We also used a flip camera to film our short animatic at the beginning of the process.

You can literally stick these in your pocket...

Evaluation // Question 4: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Evaluation q 4 on Prezi

Evaluation 3

                                            How did we use media technologies? on Prezi

We also used final cut pro in the production to make the whole of our music video. It worked really well for us when we wanted to make short fast jump cuts. The picture above is of all the cuts we used in the clip above the picture. The cuts are around 0.3seconds long each and it was really simple in final cut to make them this short. This edit was also cut to the beat which is Andrew Godwin's theory of cutting to the beat, we used this because we thought it went well with our very fast paced song. 

This is a video of us in the editing our music video in the construction stage.  We used worked on apple macs because it is a lot easier to take screen shots and edit videos using final cut.



This is our finished video in final cut.












The Pictures below shows how we used the push effect to slide between our different shots, we were influenced by Franz Ferdinand music video and decided we want to use the pushing effect, final cut was really simple to add these sort of effects and helped us a great deal in our construction process when wanting to make special effects.

We also used photoshop elements to construct our ancillary products. 

This is our animatic story board, our idea was not totally the same as what we planned but  i am still happy with how it turned out. 

Evaluation: Question 2

I believe that the combination of my main product and ancillary texts are very effective in what I was trying to deliver. Both products hit the main denotations and connotations of an indie band, as both products fit into the indie genre.

For an indie band the video is normally all about performance, you don't normally have fancy special effects or story lines. So from the outset we knew that performance was going to be the main basis for our video and i believe we delivered the performance quite well. The reason that our audience would be able to link our to products is because we are in both of them, this may seem a simple answer, but for an indie band it mostly about what you look like and the style that you are. So in the video we wear different styles of clothing to contrast genres in different locations, however on my ancillary product we wear clothes that are truly us, that is what we look like on a daily basis, because we portray that we are cool, and just guys who write and perform music. Indie bands do not need to make themselves try to look special like lady gaga by wearing a fish, indie bands relate to their audience by just being normal everyday people, and we show this by the clothes we wear in our ancillary products. 

Another thing that links our music video with ancillary product is one of our costumes. In the video we do wear indie clothes, however it is not a main focus point because we were trying to contrast costume with location so the indie costume did not stand out so much. But it is still there, so the audience would still see that costume and as we sing indie music they would assume that is our regular attire, then when they would look at our ancillary product they would see us in similar clothing to one of our costumes, and be able to confirm their thoughts on the indie style that we were trying to portray. 

I believe our target audience would be attracted to both of our products as they would like the quirkiness about it, they would find it a bit more interesting to look at than just a normal performance video as their is another aspect to concentrate on which is the changing of costume and location, I believe they would find this quite enjoyable to see an indie band contradicting different genres with their clothes as it can be quite comical and enjoyable. Moreover the ancillary products would attract them because they would be able to see us in our true style, they would see us as being quite cool and be able to relate to us as a band because we are just normally people. 

The pictures on the left is a comparison between my music video and front panel of my album. As you can see the two costumes are similar in style, they both are something that and indie band would wear to show what genre of music they belong to. The indie attire was only one of our costumes in the video so that the audience could see what we truly are and what you would expect the band to be wearing when performing the song we performed. This is why i think they work well together, because even though our video is a performance video in loads of different costumes, you can still relate the two by one of the costumes we wear.




These two pictures are a comparison between my advert and a scene in our music video. In this particular scene we were wearing pyjamas, this is where we  contradicted what a indie band would actually wear, contrasting the mise en scene with our location, because you do not normally see an indie band playing their guitars in pyjamas next to a fountain. They do not link on first site but the wearing pyjamas was part of doing something different that indie bands do to make their video for interesting to watch. It was us making fun of ourselves and being able to laugh at ourselves, and you can relate the two enough from other costumes we wear.

Evaluation 4

From the feedback from the audience I have learned many things. On the whole the audience seemed to enjoy our music video, the main positive point we received was that we used the mise en scene very well and cut to the beat excellently and this helped to appeal to our genre. I feel these comments are appropriate as we worked very hard on making sure the mise en scene would contrast the background and this was reflected in the audiences feedback as they appreciated the mise en scene. One of the main criticisms was the we didnt use enough angles throughout our music video. This is a very fair point and on reflection I feel I should definitely have used more angles. I probably could have used angles from the sides more often and tried to use more of the moving camera. However, one of the main reasons we didn't use lots of angles was the idea behind our music video which was to be different from mainstream videos and be quirky. But I now feel after receiving the feedback that we should have used more of a moving camera and tried to include more camera angles. The feedback also makes me feel like we should have been more flexible with our idea and this would have led to us using different angles.

Evaluation 4

GoAnimate.com: evaluation 4 anime by jem45

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Evaluation // Question 3: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? - Part 1

Throughout the entire process of creating a music video, I used a range of different of technologies to help research, plan and create my groups music video.

Evaluation question 3 on Prezi

Evaluation Question 2

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

My advert is very effective in relation to my video, the clear links are the the very simple dress code and emotionless, laid back attitude of the artists. Throughout our music video the dress code remains very basic and is not extravagant, also the artists are not performing the song by moving around putting lots of effort in to it. This is reflected in my advertisement as both artists are leaning on a wall which is a clear link to the laid back attitude from the video. Also both artists reflect the emotionless attitudes that where displayed in the video, both artists are not showing any specific facial expressions in the advertisement which is a constant element in our video. The black and white effect helps to keep the image seemingly simple which is another recurring element of our music video. This also would be very appealing to the indie genre's audience, as the audience are famed to prefer non-mainstream products. This was a strong motivation behind my advertisement and this was one of the main reasons for the black and white design and also why I tried to keep the advert simple but different. A typical aspect of the indie genre which an indie audience would look for would be to have a certain quirkiness which is not so apparent in most mainstream songs and most genres. This was another reason for the black and white advert as it is quite uncommon in the music industry, also most adverts from other genres show artists in special poses or in extravagant outfits but my advert challenges those conventions and shows the artists in relatively average clothes in a relaxed pose. This would make the advert very appealing to the target audience as these are the conventions of the indie genre and also it is not mainstream which is another aspect of the indie genre.

My CD cover has many links with the music video which the advertisement also has, the images are all black and white which emphasises the simplicity and the non-mainstream elements of the indie genre, which are both elements of the music video. Furthermore the cd cover shows the quirky style which appeals to the target audience of the indie genre, through the image of the hand and the black and white effect. This quirkiness is also apparent in the music video as the music video shows a lot of different effects through the jump cuts and the sliding images which aren't typical aspects of most genres and this quirky idea also is a strong convention of the indie genre and so would appeal to the audience. 

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation question 3 on Prezi

This is a video of when we used final cut to edit our music video it took a lot of time and effort as final cut was a tricky programme. But it was very important for editing especially considering our idea which needed lots of very specific cuts. Also the the sliding images was another reason why final cut was a vital technology during the production process.

This is our animatic by the end of the production of our music video a lot of our original ideas from the animatic stage had changed, but I do feel all of those changes were for the best. 

Evaluation Question 4

Audience Feedback For The Music Video

 

My own feedback on the music video   

GoAnimate.com: Feedback by reyes_z3

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Audience Feedback for my Digipak

here are a few comments on the design i got from facebook.

The feedback i recieved helped alot, it helped me narrow down what was wrong with my Digipak and also gave me a few pointers on how to improve it. 

Here is the comparison between the rough design and the final version.

I had to make a few changes to the front panel because of the feedback i recieved:

• the tracklist had to be altered and made longer and therefore made a gap underneath the tracklist which i still dont like. 
• I had to change the record label from Virgin to Mercury because i was using the wrong logo.
• The font had to be change for the copyright message, as i happened to be using 'Comic Sans'.

The inside panel had to be altered too:

• The text was adjusted, as the perspective did not seem right. 
• The CD holder was made transparent
• An image was placed behind the CD holder.

Overall i am happy with the final result of the Digipak and music video, although i still feel like we could have improved the music video alot more, it did come out alot better than i had imagined.

Evaluation question one

When we started the planning process we wanted to make sure our music video was unique, different but also wanted to fit in with conventions of the indie genre, we did this by using similar camera shots with quirky editing and quirky mise en scene which is a convention of the indie genre. The unique idea we had was for different costumes in different places but then we altered this to contrast our costumes with the places we were filming to make sure we also challenged some of the conventions. For example we used pyjamas in a business area and we used suits on a roof top with flats in the background.

The main influence behind our music video was 'something good can work' from Two Door Cinema Club, they used very fast cuts which where cut to the beat. Also the background colour also changes along with the artists moving all over the screen, the main difference is the changes in costume we use throughout. Also the camera is very still in this music video and stays at the same distance we also took this idea and applied it to our music video but we did include some moving shots and some broke the screen into four to give us a different element to our music video.

This is another media groups music video we came across on youtube it was very helpful as it taught us how to move the camera in a special way. We decided to use this effect to conclude our music video and it seemed very effective.

We also used an idea from another Two Door Cinema Club song our idea was to use a female in our music video that the song is directed towards. This would give our music video another element and also fit the conventions.

Our digipak is quite conventional as it is simple and quirky which is very similar to the kooks album cover. Both our album covers are black and white with stand out text. We also used our black and white theme throughout, our quirky image of the hand also matches the genre. 

Evaluation Question 3 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning, and evaluation stages?

Here is a video of me during the editing process:

 i was lining up all the base tracks to the song, in order to make the lip sync as close as possible to the song.

Alot of the technologies i used throughout the research and development process helped to make everything alot easier to manage aswell as implement.

  

Here was an idea we originally had during the start of editing the footage

 

we planned to have a split screened version of two different locations, but later realised we could include all four locations and it would look alot better aswell. 

Here I have included a screenshot of how I laid out each clip so that it would seem like the clips have been animated on and come on at different times, as well as flash to the beat.

This is our animated storyboard, it has the basic ideas of how we we wanted it to be and looking back at how we thought the music video will eventually turn out, it actually turned out to be alot better than we imagined!

Evaluation Question 2 - How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product And Ancillary Texts?

The Digipak aswell as the advertisements has a visual link with the music video we produced, however it seems to be a hidden link and possibly not as obvious to the audience. 

The visual link is the environment around the band during the music video and the ancillary products.

In the music video we have 4 locations in which the footage is shot in:

Each of these locations have greenery in the background and we have specifically decided on this as it would help us to link our music video to the Digipak as well as the advert.

The Audience might find it difficult to spot the link, however they will be able to recognise the visual link as linked products through the use of images i have used in the Digipak as well as the Advert.

The images i used in the Digipak were specifically designed to make it seem like the environment was wrapping around the band members and in the advert it seems to be wrapping around the Advert. However in the music video we havent shown this clearly, however we have shown them to be constantly followed by the environment behind them.

My Main and Ancillary texts are used extremely well however dont reflect the visual links between the music video and my ancillary products. 

These texts are from both the Digipak And The Advert and are consistant to one font, Bebas. Although texts does not stand out as much through using two or more fonts to emphasise certain information, i decided to use one font to make the entire Digipak as well as the Advert have a constant design scheme. 

Therefore, where i have needed to emphasise certain information i have used different shades of the same colour to make some texts stand out more than others to catch the audiences attention.

i think it will attract our target audiences, it is something different and alot of Digipaks as well as the Advert don't really use one simple font just as i have and also use different shades to emphasise points or certain text.



It also helps to portray the indie genre of our band through being different and independent.

Here is a Digipak that i had previously reviewed:

After seeing this i immediately liked the layout and the way the text is very simple and only bolded to show emphasis on the band name. It is very simple yet looks really good and easy to look at. 

I didn't initially decide to use this kind of layout but as i was designing the Digipak it came naturally to follow this simple layout.

The advert however was just simply made through looking at the Digipak and assuming how the advert should look and also link back to the Digipak.

I did look at a few examples but i couldn't find any professional adverts and found a few student made adverts:

Although these student made adverts didn't look appealing to me i did manage to find a simple student advert:

 The Title/Heading of this Advert was the only thing i implemented into my Advert, the way the text is laid out and the Digipak is in the centre of the Advert to catch the audiences attention.