Reflection Evaluation- Charlie

How did you user media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?


Here is a verbal video response to question 4:

Other feedback sheets - Sophie

These are the other feedback sheets we collected from are audience, overall they are positive comments. 

Reflection Evaluation- Charlie

What have you learned from your audience feedback? 

After we had posted our finished video on the blog and added pictures of the clips, we got some peers form our class to watch our music and ask them to fill in a questionnaire about what they thought of the video, did it sell the artist to them and if there was anything that we could have improved on. Here are some of them:


1

This girl said that she liked the shots that were taken as there was a good variety from close ups to long shots which showed our ability with the camera. She also said that the quirky shots and the dancing fitted in really well with the song and matched well. The only thing that she said could have been improved was more shots of the dancing, however she said that she liked the performance shots which was really important to us as we were doing a indie video which heavily involved performance sections.

2
  
We then asked two males what they thought of our video. They said that the shots were good, the setting was appropriate and that there were some good shots and inclusion of the band which they said sold the artist to them. Furthermore, they said the lip syncing was good along with the guitar playing and the song was catchy. Their only thing to improve was the use of more narrative in detail as they wanted it to be more expansive. Although we take on what they have said, we would have to think carefully and decide if we were to do it again whether we would add more narrative as the performance is more important than the narrative.

They gave us 27/40

3
 


The next one was by a male and female group. They really liked our music video and were a fan of Miles Kane so this would help us if there was anything we could have done better.
They said that it looked professional, the locations and costumes were good for the mise en scene, the genre conventions were fine and  sold the artist to them as well as the video. Also they said that the music video fitted well with the song as the dancing and shots from the video fitted in well with the upbeat song.


They gave us 23/40




4
 
This questionnaire was filled out by a all girl group. They said that the performance shots and the lip syncing were really good in our video and the video overall was suitable for the genre as well as saying that we sold the artist to them and that the shots within the video were appropriately used and fitted the mood of the song. The only criticism they had for our video was that some of the drumming was out of time, we tried before finishing the video trying to move it and change it to get in time with the beat of the track but for some reason it just wouldn't go in time.


They gave us 30/40




After looking at all of the feedback from our peers, I made a "wordle" similar to what we did with the lyrics from quicksand. I've added some of the words from the questionnaire and combined them together: 

When looking at the wordle, the biggest words are the most important and the key things Such as Miles Kane ofcourse, indie , catchy, Mise-en-scene and lip syncing which are all vital and make up the majority of our video.

Reflection Evaluation- Charlie

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

I feel that we have mostly maintained a clear image and theme throughout our campaign from the start. The only thing that has changed through our campaign is the use of more narrative in the video as our teachers advised that if we wanted a narrative in the video it had to be more obvious so the audience can understand it so it can be followed but not make it dominate the video. Apart from that, the idea of location and layout of it what we were going to include, the general outcome of what we wanted the music video to look like and the main singer as Miles Kane have been the same throughout.

When looking at the website, CD cover and the music product itself, I think that they are all interrealaed as they all have the same ideas behind them, both the CD cover and website have similar layouts, colour text and theme behind them and the video shows the characteristics of Miles Kane and the indie genre really well. I also feel they all give off the same impression of Miles Kane with everything being simple yet effective, smart yet laid back and appeals to the indie genre and his fans.

The relationship and purpose between our music video, the website and the CD cover are all formed to sell the music and the artist and achieve what the audience want as a consumer. The relationship and connection between our products is visible as the CD cover is advertised and shown on the website along with the music video itself and some of the images of the band and Miles Kane promoting him. Also images of Miles Kane are on the CD cover to promote him as a artist and images of instruments as well which can be expected on indie CD covers.

Here is a image of a digipak from Katy Perry and her album California Gurls:
 By looking at this digipak it is evident that Katy Perry has used images and ideas that will promote her album and her to a wide range of audiences. The use of candy floss and sweet things with pink clouds appeal to children and young girls as sweets are appealing at that age and looking at giant lolly pops as kids love sweets . This is also connected with her video California Gurls as she is transported to a sweety world with candy floss, gummy bears, jelly and sweets everywhere which shows the connection and relation to the video and album cover. However it also appeals to the male audience also and the shots of Katy Perry herself are of her under the impression that she isn't wearing any clothes and is posing on the front and inside cover which is very provocative and appeals to the male audience as a sexual image .

There are a few similarities between this digipak and ours. The use of having the artist on the front and inside cover to promote him and his music. Although the portrayal of his is smart and a laid back image whereas these images are more seductive and appeal more to the male audience.

Front and Back cover


Inside cover and CD



Website
 

Evaluations

After showing our music video to the rest of our class, they gave us feedback on what they liked about the video, whether they felt the product sold the artist to them, whether it fitted with the conventions of the genre and artist and anything that could have been improved:

Important photos and shots

Here are some shots we think are important that are in our video and screen grabs of our website and digi pack :

Finished video

We have finally finished our music video. After enormous amount of stress due to lack of location, actors availablitly and re shooting we have uploaded our clips, put it all together, cut it down and edit it to create our 3 minute video.

Editing in progress

We decided that we wanted to keep the black and white idea in our video so when we looked through our video and the effects available we decided to use the Old B&W effect and made it so the effect finished halfway though this clip. The clip before are all B&W so its as though colour comes into being when the dancing couple enter the dance hall.

Editing ideas

We have looked at the brightness and contrast effect and found that it worked quite well. We have also looked at other effects that might improve the quality of our footage. Some of the effects we've looked at are;

Soft focus,
Sharpen,
ss adjust colours, shadows
ss adjust colours highlights.

Of the ones we have looked at we decided that soft focus didn't work very well and neither did the sharpen as they drew attention to the poor quality rather than away from it.

Soft focus

Sharpen

We have also compared two clips, one with the brightness and contrast and the other without.

Effect added

no effect

We found that the adjust colours shadows and highlights effects both made the video look better. We also noticed that the highlights would allow us to put a more subtle blue filter over our footage if we used it.

Shadows

Highlights

Editing ideas

We have re-watched our video and have considered some other effects we might use.

Since we wanted a blue filter over parts of our video, we have looked at the Colour monochrome, ss response curve blue extreme, ss Extract blue. We have looked through all of these but have found that they are too bright, as we wanted something that would be more subtle in its filtering.

When we were thinking about doing this, we thought about using light filters when shooting but found that it didn't give the effect that we wanted and so though it best to leave it to editing. So far we haven't found anything suitable for the blue effect and have decided that if we can't find anything appropriate we will have to scrap the idea completely.

Colour monochrome

ss Extract Blue

ss Response curve extreme blue.

Video progress

We have completed the sequencing of our video, and now all we have to do is add effects. We have spent some time thinking about what we want to do with our video, and found that we will have to use effects to minimise the poor quality of some of the footage, where the camera wouldn't focus properly. We feel the most appropriate effect would be the brightness and contrast as it would make the colours brighter and the graininess of the footage less noticeable.

By using this effect we can also make all the lighting in our video look more alike, since there are a few shots that are much brighter than the others.

We are also considering whether or not our footage would still work with the black and white effect we were originally wanted for our video.

Video Progress

We have almost completed our video, and only have a few more seconds of time to fill, before we can start adding our effects to it, and finishing it completely.

We have had to re-film some parts because the footage was either too poor quality or missing. We also had to revert a few of our clips to the original, to find footage that was mistakenly deleted.

Reflection Evaluation- Charlie

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

Our music video

Miles Kane- Inhaler

I feel that our music video uses forms and conventions related to indie genre. The aspect commonly found in indie music videos is live performance which is used throughout our performance. Both the Miles Kane and the Kasabian videos underneath included live performance in them also. The reason behind this is that the music emphasizes on guitars and drums so when you can hear a drum or guitar playing the audience expect that in the music video the instrument playing will be seen. This is why the ratio of performance to narrative is a lot higher in indie videos.

                                                                                                           

                    

                    Kasabian- Underdog

Throughout all of his music videos so far, MilesKane has worn a traditional  

suit with tie, which makes him appear smart, yet a sense of him being laid back. In his other video Come Closer, there is a dancer that he seems to like and then runs off with her and with the words in our song such as "Tango Foxtrot" we decided to use a dancer in our as well and in a dance hall. Although the girl dancer has a lot more revealing outfit in the other video. We decided because the song is a lot more lively that we would dress her up in a more traditional ballroom dress to fit with the song. There were no bright colours worn by the band members to show that they were everyday, smart, casual people which can relate to the audience.

                                                                                                                                                          

One thing hat has challenged the forms and conventions of our genre is having a little more inclusion of the narrative. We felt we had to included more narrative because we changed some of our storyboard and we thought the story had to have more meaning as the audience may not have understood what was going on in the music video.

Editing in process

In our next lesson after our second shooting, we set about editing and cutting down our footage to fit in with the storyboard lengths and ofcourse with the music.

We first starting placing in the footage according to our storyboard and cutting it down to match, we then looked over it and decided that although we filmed the shots in order the amount of footage we had that were suppose to start before the music was too long. So we choose to start the music straight in with the footage and mix the beginning clips together instead of having long sections of narrative then performance as it fits better and attracts the audience.

So far we have done the first minute of the song and the last couple of shots at the end. With a little bit more done in our free time at college, it will definitely be done in time so long as we have the right, quality amount of shots throughout the song.

Here are some screen grabs of what we have done so far: