FINAL FINISHED PRODUCTS

MUSIC VIDEO


WEBSITE
http://aliciaswiderski.wix.com/cece-green


CD DIGI PACK

Directors commentary script

Through this music video we are going to be talking about the way in which we used digital technology all the way through the course in order to create a successful product.

 

We used google in many occurrence of our research and planning as it allows us to gain inspirational ideas through videos, pictures and information. Wesch argues that information is shared throughout the world using different platforms such as google and YouTube, this allows us to research target audiences and their conventions of locations and similar artists relevant to our campaign.

During pre- production one of our tasks set was to create an animatic for our music video, to so this we had to film each frame of our story board with a light weight Sony camera. After filming each frame of the story board we up loaded our footage on to final cut pro and cut our shots together at the pace of our chosen song. This helped give us an idea of what our music video will look like, and allowed us to develop further on ideas. 

After finishing the animatic we posted it on e-blogger. E-blogger is a platform that we used throughout our media course, it is a great piece of online software as it allowed us to have an ongoing diary of our progress of ideas for our music video.

On the shoot day we encountered a vast amount of technology, however the most important being the Sony X3 camera, This allowing us to film for a long time period and film the angles and shots we need. However we also had the technology of iPads and televisions. The iPad had a time code on making it easier for editing later on in the process. The television was connected to the camera, letting us see what the camera timed on the tv, this letting us see the overall impact of the camera position in better quality and perspective. We also used a lighting board when in the studio as we needed to create an eerie set, we did not want bright lights, only a dim and dull atmosphere, we did this via the lighting board.

During the shoot day, we saw the opportunity to take photographs for our album cover, and also website. We simply used our iPhone for this as it takes good quality photos. Doing this on the day was very helpful due to the complexity of our artists makeup.

For post-production of our video we used various digital technologies to achieve the effects we needed. We mainly used final cut pro in order to edit our music video together, however we also used Photoshop for our cd digipack and creating our second presence, but also colour, to change the look of the video once it was complete.

Final cut pro was a significant technology. We first synced the audio track to each of our performance clips. This was done by linking the markers on the time code of the song, with the same time on the time code of the clip. Due to previously constructing our animatic, we had a good idea of what we wanted the editing to look like. The face that we were using digital technology meant that we could go back and re organise certain clips we had previously constructed. This creating a stronger effect, and therefor narrative. 

However as our music video was aiming to be unconventional and eerie, we used alternative ways of editing, such as chopping up a small section of a clip using the blade tool, and readjusting/ layering the cuttings to create a frozen/ replaying effect in the clip. We also used the technology of final cut pro in ways of speeding/ slowing clip, or even reversing them in order to appear unconventional.

Starstruck Commentary

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Task 4 title

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

TASK 4

how did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

PRE PRODUCTION
In pre production we manly used the internet as a research tool for digital technology. We used it for researching into inspiration for example, we used youtube to watch die ant words music video and to look at his website for inspiration. Youtube generated and influenced our work a vast amount as we managed to find ideas and other artists work to reference ours. On youtube many artists like Santigold have their own music pages, this meant that we could go directly to her work and watch what she had put online, like her album that we used for influence L.E.S Artistes and her song Starstruck.
We also brought a lot of our props on websites like ebay and amazons so they would come faster. We used final cut pro to cut together our animatic which was in the pre production stage which helped us know how our video would go together. We used blogger which is an online software to write down our ideas and plans and anything we needed, we were also able to link Presi and other websites to blogger which helped explain our ideas, this shows cross media convergences where they are working together.



This video gave us a lot of inspiration at the beginning whilst in the pre production stage when we didn't have a set idea. The weird dark vibe in the video gave us a lot of inspiration which lead us on to using the internet and finding other videos and website of the artist.
The last part in pre production is that we used a flip camera to film our animatic. We drew out all the shots of through out the video that we had planned and wrote about it underneath, we then filmed every drawn out shot for 10 seconds then cut the clips to the appropriate length on Final Cut Pro so we had a rough idea of what our video would be like and to see if the lengths of the clips worked. We then uploaded it to YouTube and Blogger so that we could keep an account of the plan.



PRODUCTION:
In the production stage we used the Song NX5 to shoot the whole thing, we also used our iPhones to take photos throughout the day so we could blog the whole day on our online blog. we also used white balance and lens changes. We used 3 different types of lenses for each shoot, close up, medium shot and wide shot. The camera was the same camera that we used for my AS thriller which meant that we new how to work it which made the whole process much easier. We used an Ipad that recorded the time lapse for the video, and a flat screen TV that we projected the shots onto whilst being filmed which allowed us to see what was being film which was useful because then we could tell if that shot had work or if we ha to alter or change something.



POST PRODUCTION
After shooting everything we needed for our video we transferred everything to a Mac book computer which we had Final Cut Pro on. This is a professional editing software which also has special effects which we need. First of all we used the data from the Ipad which recorded the time code so we could link up the shots to the music so we could see if the lipsinking was going to work. We made a very rough copy first and then neatened and filled it out. During the editing stage we learnt various different techniques on Final Cut Pro like using the blade tool which meant that we could chop the clips up to create the jittery quick cutting effect, we had this running through a lot of the video, another tool we used was the crop tool which meant that we could cut the clips to use the parts we needed. We also added in a little monster thing in the video for special effects which was created on photoshop, and then dropped it into the parts that we wanted it to be in. Also on Final Cut Pro we could change the lighting and colour to make some shots darked like the ones which we shot in the studio as we didn't want the colour to be too much of a contrast between the studio and wood shots. We also changed the colour of the clips to more of a blue/green as this gave off a cold atmosphere which we planned. We also had to make a website for the artist which we created on Wix which is an online website creater, we put pictures that we had taken on our phones and other digital cameras on the website, we also uploaded the final video to it and a CD digi pack which we used Photoshop which we created images, edited and combined them together. We shared out video on websites that we know our target audiences use like, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter as we knew this was used by our target audience, this allowed the audiences to like or share our work which was a very helpful process for us.m
After we finished editing our video we uploaded it to YouTube so we could publish our work and see how many views we get and to see the audiences responses, we used YouTube as our selling point to get it to our audiences as we new it would work because how we found other videos to get our inspiration from. Our last stage was to film our directors commentary, this we filmed on the same camera (Sony NX3) we had TV in front of us in the room playing the video so we new that the talking would be as long as the video.

Task 3: Title

What have I learnt from my audience feedback ?

Task 3- Focus group video

What have I learnt from my audience feed back?

We learnt as a group that we achieved the eerie effects that we hoped to get although some people said that the editing got a bit too repetitive and thought that the jumpy part could have been cut down slightly. We were also happy with our response that we got from the website and CD digi pack and how they all relate together and work well selling the over all product. We were told that people like our video because it unconventional and different to anything which made it more interesting as people like unique and alternative things.

Task 3: feed back prezi

Task 3- youtube statistics

Task 3: audience feed back questions for Survey Monkey

These are our audience feed back questions which will we will use to ask various different people This questions we created a survey monkey and sent them round on email. We used questions that would relate to all parts of our course work including the video, CD digi pack and the website so that we could have a full understanding of what went wrong and right. In the survey monkey we left a large box for comments so that the people who were giving feed back could say as much as they needed. 

1. What aspects do you like about the video?
2. Do you think the lighting was effective in creating an eerie feel?
3. Do you think the locations used where effective in creating a creepy feel?
4. Was there any parts of the video you didn't like?
5. Do you think the website represents the artist well?
6. Would you by the CD Digi Pak if you saw it in a shop?
7. What design elements do you like on the Digi Pak?
8. Does it remain you of any similar artist?
9. Would you subscribe to to their channel?
10. What are your favourite elements of the music video?
11. How effective do you think the campaign is?
12. What do you think of the special effects?

These are some of the responses that we got from the survey. We were overall pleased with the responses that we got from the survey, it was also interesting to see what parts people like and did not, most things people picked up on was that they liked the editing and how alternative and different the video was which is what we were looking for. We were also happy with some of the responses about how the digi pack and the website also reflect well with the video which shows us that it looks professional and therefore would have success in the industry. 

Task 3: Focus group

We are starting to plan when we are going to do out focus group, this is when we screen our music video to a group of people and then get feed back. We have decided that we want a mixture of target audiences and not as then we can prove to what we thought was the right age group for our genre. This will be different to our survey monkey as we can see who is saying what an it is not inominous so therefore we can see exactly who thinks what of it

Taask 3: Survey monkey

click here to fill out out our survey!!
We have created a survey monkey and sent it out to various different people on email, some out target audiences and some not so we can see the contrast between them.
This is a good way to get annonminous feed back from our music video.
We are waiting for the feed back now

evaluation tast 2

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

 

Evaluation Task 1

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

For my first evaluation task I will evaluate my music video, my website and my CD digi pak pointing out the areas that we used forms and conventions.

Evaluation Task 1 (Music Video)

 

Evaluation Task 1 (website)

evaluation tast 1 (CD)

After designing our CD digipak we made sure that they had the main things that occur on normal CD covers so that it looks realistic and professional.

We put the artist name and album name titles in capital as it draws attention to it straight away which is very important. I also think that putting a black frame with white writing is very effecting as it stands out more which would be more effective when selling the album. I also think that the art work is really effective as it creates a theme across the CD pack, artwork can sell an album as it usually links to the target audience, our artwork is very unusual and alternative which is what our artist is which is why I think it works well.  We also kept the theme of white writing on black on the back when writing on the track list, we did a conventional amount of tracks which is usually 10-12 tracks unless is it a single. We also put on everything else that you would usually expect to see on the back of a CD like the barcode, product information ect. Another thing that we kept conventional is that we kept the font the same throughout the CD as this looks more professional and realistic. 

This is little boots front cover of her album, you can see the similarities between what she has on the front of our cover as hers. Our CD digi pak is convensional because we have all the things that you would expect to see on a CD. This makes it more appealing to the audiences because it looks professional.

 

 

 

This is our final product, you can see the two images that we are putting inside the case which are the two outside image as they fold in. We didn't want our front and back to be have the same theme as the inside images as I think because they are quite strong colours we wanted the inside to be more calm. We took very alternative images for the inside as we are looking to target very alternative audiences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rough ideas for our CD digipak

                                          Front 1

Front 2

Inside 1

Inside 2

Back 1