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

This video clips shows how we have used conventions by referencing real indie/emo/rock bands and mimicking their forms eg heavy performance, CU of instruments, band on cover etc; how we have developed them by having an amplified narrative with performance and challenged them by including features such as a female and low buget set

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

media products and ancillary texts

this video explains how we used synergy between our media products to create a really interactive campaign to target our young audience and effectively promote the band

Question 3:What have you learned from your audience feedback?

we have learnt from our audience feedback that there is a slight difference between who we in tended to target and who we actually targeted:

we intended to target:
16-24 year olds

both genders

very into there music (eg in a band)

music part of their identity (dresscode social group)

fans of indie/emo rock music

consume music online and through live gigs

we found out that we targetted:

both genders

fans of other genres - inc. RnB and heavy metal

consume mainly on online streamline

music appricators

However after looking at our audience feedback, we discovered that we had a slightly wider/different appeal as we appealed to a secondary audience of people of the same age - but who are fans of a different genres.

this pie chart illustrates how we have appealed to both genders pretty evenly - which we tried to do by having both males and females in the band.

Our feedback also showed that people favoured certain band members, showing we achieved both narscasistic pleasure with women and izzy and a sexual appeal with women and Tom. 



This graph indicates that we sucessfully communicated the genre of the band/song as most of our target audience selected the words indie - emo - and rock to describe the video

this graph suggests that our target audience primarily stream things online or illegally download music. therefore we learnt that to speciffically target oour album and single to them we should have a large online emphasis to our campaign , which we have done by putting a link to buying our album online and by placing an MP3 version of the song on Spotify.Another favourite method of consumptions is via live gigs - which we have promoted in our TOURS web page

(dom made the graphs as part of our group evaluation)

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

We used new technologies in all stages of our production - including planning, production and editing. the clip shows how we used colour change, colour pass, chroma key, brightness and contrast and rotascoping on Adobe Premier Pro to create our distinctive orange on black and white performance



our canon HD video camera was a key piece of equipment when making our music viedo as we were able to easily shoot in very high quality in uncontrolled environment. this gave very proffesional resulta especially when used with a tripod and floor and studio lights



during the production of both our music video and album cover, we used proffesional studio and floor lights in combination with effects such as brightness and contrast(within Photoshop and Adobe to create really vibirant colours and proffesional looking products. we also used http://www.wix.com/ - a website where you can create your own flash website really easily (drag and drop) - www.wix.com/erwinsfelicide/music. this helped make our website really interactive and full of cross media convergence - which is suitabke for our demanding and technologically apt audience. we also used an MP3 version of the song on the online music layer and whilst editing to allow us to use it across media platforms not just on a CD player.

 in our evalutation stages we used much of the same hardware and software to create our answers - such as Adobe on computers, plus importing images from the internet for Q1 and 2. the clip from Q3 also shows how we used the camera to film our audience response, whereas the clip shows us using a camera and tripod to and a projector during the screening.

Website Signed Off

today was a great day as our website was signed off meaning that all our production is done!!!!!!!

im really imopressed with our website as it contains lots of mixed media content and links to lots of different sites (our facebook, youtube twitter etc)

click on the link at the top to see our finished website

now we can focus on our evaluation - without worrying about have to do any more editing

Finished Music Video

Hooray - weve finished our music video after hours and hours and hours of effects and rotoscoping. I do think the orange and black and white looks very strong and it compliments and contrasts our narrative footage. Hopefully it will go down well at our screening on tuesday which we have advertised via facebook, word of mouth and even posters

our finished product is at the top of the page

Album Cover Finished

Weve finally signed off our album cover and it looks really good. We were really pleased about the image on the back cover as it is a beautiful action shot. Intially we werent sure if we could make it work with the song titles and institutional information as there wasnt much space on the picture - but after alot of regiging we managed to make it work. I was also please that we got our logo, website and record company on the cover as it links the products together to help brand the band. I also think our logog looks very proffesional as it is simple but clear and memorable.

look at the top to see our finished product 

Ongoing Production Work

we are currently doing alot of intesive work on all three of our media products. the plan is for me and dom to focus on the album cover in our lessons and for wanda and claire to focus on the website in theirs. in addition to this we will each take it in turns to edit our sequence both in and out of lessons

us editing effects on our video

Album Cover and Website Photoshoot

our photoshoot went really well yesterday we got a wide variety of shots and everyones costume looked right (each in a different bright colour, fancy shoes). the aim is to use 3 pictures for the album and one key one for the website homepage. we also want to use a picture of each band member for their about us page on the website.

here are some samples from yesterdays shoot

the next step is to add effects like brightness and contrast to all shots to make them look proffessional

Ongoing Editing

As we've now gathered all of our footage, were going to make a rough cut of our sequence. We learnt from our prelim and research to create a whole performance only sequence before slotting in the narrative on top. with this layering effect we should get the best form both halves of our video.

Performance Shoot

Our performance shoot went really well and everyone gave lots of energy until the very end. we tried to use lots of moving shots to give us lots of variety and include a range of shots for all the band members. there was no problems with the playback and we decided to utilise our lights fully by having a blue background

pictures of us during and after performance shoot

Preparing Performance Shoot

Again we have used facebook to organise meetings with everyone involved and managed to get 2 helpers for hair and makeup

We have booked the seward studio for afterschool on tuesday, and are going to set it up our free lessons beforehand. We have been loaned equipment by the music department and guitars from a friend. Again we have made a shooting scheduale and shot list

Here is a picture of us with our planning paperwork including sketches of costume, calendar and mind map

Planning Performance Shoot

to contrast our homemade/guerilla narrative shoot - we want our performance to look as proffesional as possible. we have already sorted out the costumes for our band and plan those quite carefull. we have learnt from our theory to include plenty of extremes(wides and ECUs) particularly emphasising the instruments to signify our genre.

here are some shots of izzy and anguses planned costume

we are looking at similar style videos to look at  the choreography of the band while playing. in fact we got quite into rehersing the movement of the band

Narrative Shoot

the narrative shoot seemed to go quite - but we we stopped form filming in many of our locations, but we did grab at least 1 shot in every location. i was really pleased with the look of our antagonists and everyone kept going right through the day.

Storyboard

we have been working on our story board which consists of post-it notes of each individual shot. we then placed these on a timeline (0:00 - 3:30, length of music track). we did this after our location reccie so we knew exactly what we wanted each narrative shot to look like. to this we added shot ideas for our performance shoot and interweaved it with the narrative at appropriate moments. this will really help us when filming as we can use it to show us and our actors the framing/type of shot that we want to achieve.

performance shots: image, distance and description

narrative shots: label, image, description

organising Narrrative shoot

here is our shooting schedule, shot list for our narrative shoot.

We used facebook to organise meetings for the people envoloved to tell them where to go when and what to do. our test location reccie was very helpful here as we could show our actors exactly what shot we wanted to achieve very clearly and effectively

Planning the Narrative shoot

we are aiming to shoot the narrative half of the video during half term for this we had to finalise a look for our antagonists, we got our general idea of  head to toe in white from brainstorming ideas. once this was decided, we were able to get the antis costumes (white trousers, T shirt, white braces, black boots and gloves) and practice our face paint ideas

heres our mind map of potential ideas

we referenced both these charatcers in clockwork orange combined with similar face paint to the joker in black night

heres a picture of us mapping out where each antagonist will enter the video

We did a lyric breakdown to help us with this and what should happen at each line of the song

reflections on reading

WHAT IVE LEARNT
-classic memorable album covers have been stand out and different
-their mai aim is to sell the music (and artist) sothereforeneeds to contain some conventions such as artists name,album song and often an image of the artist
-genreis veryimortant when selling the album
-it needs to enticethe audience by being shocking or have iconic images
-soemthing linked to the artist is often used such a sa reacurring logo or colour scheme throughtoutthe markting campaign


TIPS
-selective about info on frontcover
-think about denotation forms and conventions when desgining the cover
-look at ALOT of videos
-exchange contact details
-avoid shots of people just walking around
-shoot plenty of material
-Plan everything - storyboard props etc
-check for silly mistakes such as recording without the tape etc
-bring CD player to mime to
-use effects sparingly
-shoot performance  all the way through
-get feedback throughout process - from peers and others
-dont make excuses
-relate to real examples
-include ots of technical language


WEBSITE
-lots of links to other instittions like myspace,youtub,faceboko
- easy navigation through menus etc
-direct interactivity with audience through blogs etc
-links to other artworkand different elements of the marketing campaign  - video tours etc

Reflections on Reading Posts

Assesment
         RESEARCH AND PLANNING - level 4
-research similar products (anaylisising music videos - theory)
-research potential target audience (consumtion habits, likes, dislikes, core, secondary - audience profile)
-brilliant organistation (proven by shotlogs, scripts, storyboards etc)
-good time management (shown by above and by regualr meetings and bloggings
-care in presentation (pictures, colour, video, clips, sound - interesting and visual)
-use of IT and digital skills (lots of mised media on blog)
-communication (regular blogs to communicate with group and expressing how its all going)

        PRODUCTION - level 4
using skills below in an effective but creative way
-a steady shot
-framing
-variety of distances
-filming appropriate/relevant footage
-MES
-editing to create meaning
use of sound and image

Each group member needs to contribute to the group project - use labels to identify individual work on group blog

Evaluation
Key Points
-forms and conventions
-synergy between video - album cover and website
-audience feedback
-use of new media technologies
          PLUS
-ability to communicate
-use of digital technolgies (within the evaluation itself)

excellent understanding of all these sectors = Level 4 answer

Paperwork
all paper work needed is linked to the blog for pre - pro and post production

Blogging
       GROUP
-regular blogs
-ongoing evidence of tasks and skills shown including continuing research
-show progress, change and development of ideas
-title posts and give appropriate name labels
-lots of communication
-links to claire, dom, wanda and music video blog
-links to final and acillary products
-clear to edit and browse posts (correct labelling)
-group style of blog and group photo

     INDIVIDUAL
-regular posts
-ongoing individual research
-summaries of contributuion to project and its development
-reflections
-communication between teachers (and group - though most of this will be through group blog)
-links to group blog plus cliare, wanda, doms and music video blog
-labbeling-  research planning evaluation
-links to external websites (eg latymer tube)
-easy to edit and browse
-individual style

Plagarism
make sure all work throughout the project is your own - do not lift material from proffessional sources or from other students or any other people

feedback from presentation

i was pleased with how our presentation went as its seemed to flow quite well and we included most of the important information recuired.

we also managed to do quite alot of work on developing and expanding our blog and securing our ideas

the feedabck we were given seems quite constructive so i hope we can use it to further improve and develop our idea

Development on antagonists

http://www.zimbio.com/Painting/articles/149/Face+Painted+Art+Amazing+fish+face