Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

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

Music Video

My creation of a music video for The Scripts song ‘Talk You Down’ challenged forms and
conventions of a music video by having no lip syncing or performance from the artist at all within the video. These are very strong conventions within music videos, especially when the artist is a band and this is also empathised due to the genre of the band being indie/pop-rock. As a replacement for the lip syncing I used lyrics on the screen so they were then visual as well as auditory.

By using scrabble letters to this I again challenged forms and conventions of an indie/pop-rock music video. I felt that the scrabble letters worked well with my video as they allowed for a break between the narrative story. I gained the idea of using scrabble letters to get the lyrics of the track onto the screen from an song 'Electric Feel' by MGMT who are an american pop/rock band.

 I also used shots of my female cast member writing the lyrics, which also challenge the conventions of a typical video. However I think both of these ideas were appropriate alternatives and I felt that they fitted into the video concept, especially the writing of lyrics due to the fact it was wrote by my female cast member in an almost ‘love letter’ like form.

I have used and developed forms and conventions of music videos by having a narrative story
throughout the video and also by having a love/break-up theme to the music video. I began my video by using a lot of tight close up shots of my main cast member which is very common in other music video and in particular videos of a indie/pop-rock genre. As the pace and the beats in the song picked up speed the range and style of shots I used progress from extreme close ups and close up shots in mid shot, establishing shots, hand held shots and also high angle camera shots. As the video progressed I decreased the length of the shots and had quicker edits to match the beat of the song. I feel this worked extremely well with the song as it showed the how quick the narrative story (relationship between the two cast members) can change.

Once the video establishes to the audience that the video is about a break, after the first 50 or so seconds the camera shots and locations I used change. I aimed to portray to the audience that the male is chasing after the female to save their relationship and by using a range of locations such as the train station and inside a car and also by using a point of view camera shot from the males perspective.

This challenges all of The Scripts conventions as they tend to film the main artist throughout the video mainly lip syncing however I have changed this trend but I have however still gave the males perspective throughout the video. I also tried to show that the two cast members were seperate by having a shot of the female writing a letter which is also the lyrics. This also challenges forms and conventions as the female is a huge part of the video and the story is centre around her.















I also used and developed forms and conventions of a music video by using a variety of CCTV image camera shots. I gained this idea from a number of music videos but mainly from the song ‘Miami 2 Ibiza’ by Swedish House Mafia & Tinie Tempah. Although this could also be seen as challenging music video forms and conventions due to the fact that this idea came from a video of a totally different genre which is R&B. However these shots gave the impression and concept which I wanted which was to be shown as if the video was being watched back such as a CCTV camera footage is, i.e. so it is not in real time.

CD Digipak

With my CD Digipak which I produced I aimed to have the idea of a represenation of an advertisement for the front cover. To do this I took a picture of The Cube because this had a large bold black window on it and I thought this would be suitable to use as a billboard area. I think the front cover works well and is very eye catching to the target audience. I kept the back cover very simple by using an image of a row of bollards and then placing the track listing from The Scripts album over the top of this image. Although this was a very bland and simple shot I used this image becuase it had a good depth of field. To this cover I also added a unique bar code, The Scripts record label and also copyright infringment text, by doing this it made my CD Digipak look more authentic. I then moved onto the two inside covers. For these I used a large image of my cast and spread this across both covers. However this looked very ametuerish so I included a signiture style text of the artists/group name in the bottom right hand corner.

                        

These are some exsisting CD front covers from similar artists. I can see similarities between all four of these existing CD covers and my creation of a CD Digipak for The Script.

The top two covers from One Republic and Razorlight are similar to mine in terms of the placement of the bands name and focus point of the Digipak is the single main image of each band. These two are also very sdimilar to the inside covers of my Digipak as the single image of the bands draws all the attention right into the Digipak. I think the dull but bold colours really help gain this effect and also by having a plain background.

These two CD covers from Scouting For Girls and Plan B are similar to mine by having an advertisement theme to them. The Scouting For Girls cover looks to be a poster style image with a radio which is a very popular way of promoting music. Where as the Plan B cover looks to be set at a gig or concert event. This one is extremely alike to my Digipak due tom the focus on the title as it is promoting the artist.

Music Magazine Advertisement

These are some of the pictures I took for my music advertisement which in some ways are very similar to other images which are on real music magazine advertisements.

The effect/feeling I wanted to portray with this advertisement was a relaxed/socialising atomsphere. I did this by taking plently of pictures of my cast members both as a group and seperatly. I edited these and placed them into photoshop elements where I created the advertisement. My idea of a collage like advertisment came from researching and looking at other similar artists magazine advertisements and pictures taken of the artists. I realised after doing some research into this that the majority of the images of these artists were just general pictures and not pictures of them doing music related things as I had originally thought. I also felt that the idea to include as many pictures as I could on the advertisment was important because after all the Music Magazine advertisements purpose is to promote the band. Therefore I felt the closer I could make the audience feel to the artists the more succesful the advertisement would be.

Completing My Music Video

I have now completed my music video by adding the Music channel logo and text at the beginning and end of the video.

Beginning My Evaluation

I have began my Media Studies evaluation where I will look at my Music Video, CD Digipak and Music Magazine Advertisement. I will evaluate my research and planning, construction and feedback on all three of these tasks.

I have planned to do question 1 as a blog post where I will talk about the three tasks and use images from my video and existing videos to support my evaluation along with videos and other types of media where possible.

For question two I will produce as a prezzi presentation. I will also keep this media rich and try to keep the text to a minimum by only including key points.

I have decided that a movie will be suitable for questions 3 & 4. I should find this simple as I have used Final Cup Express a lot recently. I will include images of my video, CD Digipak and music magazine advertisement and may even include video in these.

Completing My Music Magazine Advertisement

This is what I have chosen as my final Music Magazine Advertisement. I have used a selection of images of my cast to create a collage effect. I have used a range of different effects on the images by using Adobe Photoshop Elements and I also used tools such as the rubber, opacity tool and text tool. I think that this advertisement is simple but it portrays a message which is suitable to The Script and its audience based on the genre of the band and their music.

Final Session of Filming

I have now completed filming and have all of the footage which I need in order to complete my music video. I re-filmed the CCTV image shots and these now look much better instead of my first attempt at these. I have used a wider range of camera shots for these as well so it is less repetitive.

Creating A Music Magazine Advertisement

This is a screenshot of me adding an effect to an image of one of my cast. I selected the 'crosshatch' filter which gives a 'grain' effect in a crosshatch pattern. I then altered the levels of each of the options on the right until the image looked how I wanted it too. I then added this to my Music Magazine Advertisement, and also did this for a number of other images and used a range of effects on these.
I also used the rubber tool to soften the edges on some of the images and this allowed them to blend into the other images.

I also used the effect 'convert to black and white', I did this because I felt this worked extremely well on the brick wall as shown above. I felt this gave the image more meaning from the location.

Planning To Film

I aim to arrange to film within the next week. I will need to gather all the needed equipment eg: Clamp Tripod, Camera and Normal Tripod. I will also need to find out when my female cast member has the time to do this filming. I will be re-filming my CCTV image shot which is the reason why I need the clamp tripod. I am going to film this shot in different locations which will hopefully have more meaning, I also want to film a canted angle shot of my female cast member walking away from the camera and then the same of myself. I may also film an extreme close-up shot of the feet of two cast members, this could be done easily with great effect by placing the camera on the ground without the tripod.

Altering Some Shots

Today I decided to experiment with a section of my video which I wasn't sure about. The section is about 15 seconds in length, and is the final two line of lyrics from verse one. I replaced a selection of shots of the train station and a train with different types of shots of the same location. For example I removed a zoom shot of the train and replaced this with a shot of the train which I modified the speed of so that it was better suited to the music.

Continuity Within My Video

Today I have watched by music video through several times to check there are no gaps and all the shots go together. By doing this I spotted parts with poor continuity due to the way I have placed some shots from inside the car. I have now corrected these mistakes and also have been able to recognise areas which need changing/altering or re-filming. I will now begin to arrange filming sessions with my cast.

Fine-Tuning My Video

I have now completed my music video in terms of the layout of shots and the order of editing. When looking back through my video I have noticed that there is some colour correction to made to shots such as the scrabble letters because these were taken as pictures so the light levels differ. The framing of these shots also needs to be adjusted so they are all in line of the screen and aren't moving from letter to letter. I have also noticed that the shots I have filmed using the Clamp Tripod, may need to be filmed again because they are used a lot and getting this shot from different angles and in different locations should keep the audience more interested. I also think by re-filming this I could choose a location with more meaning rather than the current location, however I am still to decide on this and will think carefully about this.

Reversing A Shot

I have used the reverse shot effect in my production because I wanted this shot to give an impression that the male wants to go back in time. I think this shot works well with the lyrics "we're standing on a tiny ledge before this goes over the edge" as its repeating a small part of the video but backwards to what it was originally shown.

Mise En Scene Of My Music Video

I have tried to make my music video look very similar to existing videos from The Script and I have done this by using as many outside locations and camera shots when possible. I did this because, by using more outside locations it allows me to show the audience that the video is set in an urban environment where as if my video was located only inside this would be harder for me to portray. Another reason for doing this is that existing videos from The Script are mainly located outside and set in places such as city/town centres , train stations and parks/recreational areas.

Using Livetype

Today I have experimented using Livetype so I can apply the text over an image within my video. I used an easy to read text and a transparent background so that when I put it into my video production the image was shown and the text on top of this image. However after placing this into my video I wasn't totally convinced by the text as I felt it didn't fit in with the overall concept of my music video.

Using Video Transitions

Today I have used the zoom transistion in my music video production. I used this between two shots of the writing of the lyrics onto paper because I had split this shot so the word 'suicide' stood out more. I think this is of good quality and makes the video more interesting by using a range of effects. To achieve this effect I used the effect-video transistion-3D Simulation-Zoom option and this resulted in the effected which I had visioned.

Adding Effects To My Music Video

These screen prints are of my music video production where I have used all kinds of different effects and tools. For example I have used the crop and zoom tool on the screen print of the letter/writing on a page, in order to frame my image differently on the screen. I did this because I wanted the word 'suicide' to be more eye catching and forfront on the screen as this is a significant part of the lyrics.




I also edited the colour of the image by using the 'filter-video filters-colour correction-desaturate' tool. The reason I did this was because I thought that the black ink on the paper would be better fitting to the lyrics becuase it is a 'dark' line of lyrics and this colour is more of a representation of death than the original red ink would have been.

I also used the modify-speed effect so that the speed that the car travels matches the speed of the music. I did this by cuting the clip into sections, selecting the first part of the clip and increasing the speed to 200 percent, then progressively increasing the speed levels until it reached 800 percent which matched the peak of the musics pace.

Editing Scrabble letters

In todays lesson I continued to edit into my production, the scrabble letters of my lyrics. I placed these in the chorus and have shown these by having the word building up letter by letter. I will do some more editing with these however as the light levels are different between the shots.

Editing Filming of Scrabble Letters

Today I have edited in scrabble letters of the lyrics from my song into my music video production. As I had taken photos of these I found it tricky to time the editing and also cutting these to match it to the music and lyrics. However having said this I think these turned out well and look much better than my original way of getting lyrics onto the screen which was with the cards. By taking photos instead of videoing the scrabble letters it meant that all the images are in focus, they are easier to edit and also my hand isn't in the way from when I would have had to build the words up letter by letter.

Filming Scrabble Letters

I have taken photos of a line of lyrics from the chorus of my song track. I took these photos one letter at a time, this then created each word of the lyrics. I then inserted these images into my music video production and linked each of these images to each word within the lyrics. These then appeared one letter at a time building up the whole word in sync with the music.

Creating A Music Magazine Advertisement

This is another possible production for a music magazine advertisement for my particular artist. I used the stamp effect on the image of my cast and this allowed me to keep a plain white background which works well with the advertisements theme colour. I kept the rest of the page simple as well. I also used a font for the name of my artist which is similar to the stamp

effect of the image.

Importing Filming Of Lego

I have now imported my images of my Lego lyrics into my production and have added these into the video. I think these look very good because they are vibrant and stand out compared to the rest of my video as most of this is during the night when it is dark. Therefore this adds colour to the video. However I may re-film these shots because at times my lighting is different. When I re-film I could film somebody building the Lego lyrics which may look better as there is more going on instead of the current still images.

Filming Using Lego

Today I made a couple of my lyrics out of Lego and also built a Lego house and two lego people. I had chosen the lyrics "Heart" and "Head" to build from the Lego because they were easy to build and I feel these will stand out lyrics within the track. I used red coloured Lego blocks because this connotes love and passion. The reason I built a small Lego house with two Lego people is because I wanted to illustrate the line of lyrics "Gone to stay with friends in London". As I did not yet have any footage for this part I thought that these shots of a Lego house and people could be a possibility.

Feedback On My Music Video Construction

I have gained feedback on my music video production for Talk You Down. I showed my video to a group of people who could all be a target audience due age. In general the overall feedback was very good with the group commenting on how the video matches/cuts to the beat, the video goes from still images to moving images when the pace of the song picks up and also the video transistions work very well as they correspond with the music and beats. On the other hand the group didn't like the lyrics on the cards as they felt these looked amateurish because they could also see the person holding them. However they did like the lyrics on the card footage due to the movement of the camera. This was because the lyric 'Maybe I Can Talk You' was on one line and the lyric 'Down' was underneath so I use a pan and tilt movement to reveal the word down.

I have taken these comments on-board and I have thought a few alternatives for showing the lyrics visually on the screen. I am going to use letters from a scrabble and I could also use alphabetic fridge magnets. Another option is to write the text on a white board. To do any of these alternative ideas I would take a photo of each letter and keep the framing of the shot exactly the same throughout and then edit these together in Final Cut Express to give me the whole word/lyrics.

Alternative Music Magazine Advertisement

I have created a music advertisement which is different to the one I have been currently working on. I used an image of my cast as the main layer and used the filter-sketch-stamp effect to get this look of the image. I then added text to the design and also my artists music labels, the magazine logo and my digipak front cover. This allowed me to get an overall look of the advertisement and I think it looks very professional and would be appealing to The Scripts target audience.

Ways To Get Lyrics On The Screen

I have been researching ways to get the lyrics from my song choice 'Talk You Down' onto the screen so they are visual as well as audio. Currently all of my lyrics are wrote onto cards and onto paper. I like some of these lyrics the way which I have shown them however it doesn't always look very sharp and eye catching. I like the idea of using fridge magnets to spell out the lyrics or scrabble letters and this would be very easy to do. I also like videos which have computer generated text in them. I could do this by using Livetype and this would look sharp and modern. I will look more into these ideas and I will be likely to use at least one of these.

Altering My Music Magazine Advertisement

These screen shots show me working on my music magazine advertisement. I decided to alter the colours of the pool table (main image), from its original pinky/red colour to a vibrant blue colour. This colour will be more suitable for the band as they are males and pink or red is seen as a more feminine colour. I also think by changing the theme colour to blue it means the music logos are more eye catching.

Filming Using The Clamp Tripod

Today I completed my session of filming. I filmed my female cast member by using the Clamp Tripod, which I had used before to film myself but my female cast member was ill so I framed the shot exactly the same and filmed her. I also got a very high angle shot of her by attaching the camera to the tripod and by holding the bottom of it, which gave me an extremely high angled shot.

Editing A Shot With Effects

This screen print is of me editing my music video by adding in a shot of myself walking past the camera, which I clipped onto the side of a door by using the clamp tripod. From using this piece of equipment I have managed to get the effect of a CCTV image by framing the camera in this way and also by using a canted angled shot. I then desaturated the shot so it was in black and white to make the effect more realistic and also to reflect the mood and feel of the music video. I also wanted to make the image a bit fuzzy and less sharp to try and get the effect of a CCTV camera but I am unsure how to do this so I will research this.

Overlaying Two Shots

These screenshots show two different shots which I have filmed of my female cast member and then a digital clock. At first I just had the digital clock in the shot on its own however I thought that this looked too plain so I added a shot of my female cast member and framed this on the left side of the screen. I think this has worked well because both shots, when filmed had very dark surroundings. This helps to draw all the audiences attention towards the two images on the screen as there is nothing going on in the background.