Construction - Final Magazine Advertisement

Construction - Final CD cover

Evaluation - Question 4

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

The first stage of production is research. We often used youtube a lot to look for inspiration in carrying out or music video, especially when looking at music videos from the same genre. With the CD covers we mostly looked at the Feeling’s CD covers as we were trying to use the cover we made to reflect on the band and there style they usually use. One problem with this is there isn’t many other bands that have CD covers similar to the Feelings CD covers style which makes them very unique yet harder to follow as there are only a few covers we can look at and analyse from.

For planning, when coming to filming we mainly produced tables to show which locations, shots, characters and types of equipment we would need, using Microsoft Word. The main problem with this as it wasn’t as detailed as it should have been and we were not prepared to adapt for certain things that may have happened or changed. For example if it we didn’t check the weather so if we had finally travelled to the location to find it had started to rain we would not be prepared to cover all the equipment and would probably have to change the day of filming.

The main thing learnt about construction is that there is a lot more work involved in it and the poor time management we had meant that the production started a lot later then it should have. The knock on affect this caused is that after going through the weaknesses of the cover once it was done and the feedback meant we didn’t have a great deal of time to fix it. We used Final cut express for the music video, which meant we could add in affects and keep it within the beat of the music. After importing all of our clips onto Final cut express we then were able to look through and delete the worst clips and keep the best ones for our video. Then we had to work on cutting the clips down to decide what bit we wanted in our video and how long we would want this clip to drag on before the beat or lyrics changed in the song, using ‘in or out’. Before preparing our actual video we practised on a song ‘midnight at the oasis’, we filmed clips around the school and then cut down clips and put them together as a mini music video. We practised ‘lip syncing’ and figured out how hard it was to keep it in sync with the lyrics. This gave us hesitation on using a band yet at the same time we could not use one in order to get the audience to understand.

The main technology we used for the CD cover was Photoshop and PowerPoint as publisher was not available to us. Using the programmes Photoshop and Final cut were the most challenging as they took time to master and work out for ourselves how we would get around producing these projects. For the magazine advertisement we put it into pages, and used a notebook application to draw the characters where it involved having to draw them onto a device and implementing them onto the computer to be able to use.

The main thing I feel confident about now is Photoshop. I have managed to grasp many elements to Photoshop such as the magic wand, photo filter and filter gallery.

Filter Gallery

Photo Filter/Black and white

The biggest problem we had with the construction of the CD cover with Photoshop in making my cover was cutting out ‘Sun is shining’ from previous Feeling covers. We knew how to cut them out however the amount of time it took was enormous. In the end we had manage to cut the text out but it looked poor. Instead we stayed with ‘The Feeling’ title and used a similar looking text for ‘sun is shining’.

Compared to our design, the turnout of our original cover seemed to cover all the weak areas of our very first design. However overall the cover didn’t turn out as well as we had hoped which is why we changed our cover to use the British version. Pictures didn’t seem to work as well together which may have been able to be altered over time but with our limited amount of time it would be less hassle to stick with our British version which still ties in well with our video.

With our poor time management and lack of knowledge with computer applications we would need to use every project was completed in a very tight time schedule. I think if we had known how to use applications such as Final cut and Photoshop we would have been able to save time and hassle rather than having to work it out for ourselves.

If we had done it again I think the main improvement would be using our time more effectively and having better organisation. However I also feel we managed to work good together as a team and spread work out evenly even though there were some absences throughout the year. With more commitment I think we would have been able to complete our projects a lot sooner than we did.

Evaluation - Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The main type of audience research we did that was most helpful to us was the focus group discussion. We thought this would be most useful with the age as they are only 1 year younger then us so they would have a more level of understanding and it would be mainly teenagers that would stay in and look up music videos on the internet as adults would tend to have the time. So if this research happened to be unsuccessful then we would know it would need to be changed because if these students didn’t like the video then it wouldn’t work. This feedback was extremely useful to us because it pointed out the main factor that the music video can become too complicated easily. Along with the flashback, the murder scene at the beginning they suggested maybe not using a band, as that would over complicate things so it would not make any sense. We discussed as a group that it would probably be a good idea to use text, therefore still relating to the song yet not making it too hard for anyone watching it to understand. As we as a group had gone over the storyline many times it was quite startling to find that even the flashbacks put people of course in following what was happening in the video. We figured that it is best to listen to people that are hearing the idea for the first time as most viewers that would not tend to watch it over and over to simply understand so still using our ideas we wanted to make it as easy to get as possible. This overall was the piece of feedback, which had the biggest effect on our video and our advertisement in involving a band.

As a whole I think one of the most important aspects of feedback is that you get it before and after the product is finally finish therefore having feedback at many times of the process in producing the product to reduce the risk of having feedback once finishing the whole thing.

Evaluation - Question 2

How effective is the combination of main product and the ancillary text?

The main role of a CD cover is to reflect on the song and tie in with the nature of the band, yet also attract people’s attention. The intended role of a magazine advert is to advertise and promote the band as well as the CD to try and attract people to buy it.

We looked at adverts located in magazines and figured that mostly magazine adverts are stretched out versions of the CD covers or do at least include the CD cover on it, some with minor changes. Such as ‘Cure’, ‘13^th floor elevators’, ‘Them Crooked Vultures’ and ‘My son the bum’. The fact that CD covers are mostly located on the advertisement could be that when people see it advertised they know exactly what they are looking for in future reference for buying the product.

The CD cover relates to the music video quite a lot yet still ties in with the theme of the Feeling covers. The ‘look’ is from the Feeling covers yet the objects are from the video. With landmarks such as Big Ben and London eye in the music video as well as the carousel, the swing chain and feet.

Jamie T’s video ‘Sheila’ uses the location of lights by the London eye, which we also used in our video. The lights brighten up the dark atmosphere yet still make sure the man is the main focus.

Pink’s ‘Who knew’ video contains flashbacks and fairground rides where the fun smiley flashbacks at the ‘funground’ shows good times and makes it all happy with the rides yet the later fast pace action of the rides going round show the fast pace and intense moments of the music video.

Including flashbacks in our video make it less violent. Showing ‘Happy’ moments give it an upbeat feel. Although we didnt want our video to be typical with the song (such as flowers, sunshine), we didnt want to completely go the opposite way. Therefore putting in chirpy flashbacks helped balance this.

Evaluation - Question 1

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

As our CD cover is following the same style as covers such as 'Love it when you call', 'Sewn' and 'Twelve Stops and Home' in comparing it with one of those covers it is easy to spot what is similar about The Feeling covers to the one we made. As the real covers have all similar looks with the similar effects they look like they have we wanted to make sure that our own cover resembled the same look as the originals.

Comparing The Feelings cover with the 'Love it when you call' music video points out what concepts on the cover relate to the video in anyway. The obvious object such as the telephone cord is something you can notice straight away relating to the title and the telephone call that the song is based on. In the Sun is Shining cover the source of light or 'sun' is the traffic lights which isn't really at all obvious and goes into more detail which could come off as confusing and complicated for the audience. Looking at other magazine adverts where the CD cover always seems to be a part of it we decided to make the CD cover 3D which the new feeling characters we designed would sit on, making it a large focus of the cover.

The characters are versions of the real people. The Feeling band always seem to have pictures of them as a group which all tend to look identical so we thought we would put a twist to this duplicate look and change them to characters, much like 'Gorillaz' band do. When discussing with our focus group (younger sixth form students) and we discussed out music video they mentioned that it would be too confusing to stick with the story-line we had and have a band included. With this feedback we decided that creating characters for the role instead would be more subtle yet not disinclude the band members all together. The main reason we created them as a replacement for having a band as our feedback suggested a band would be too much complication to put in our video with our storyline.

Other bands such as Gorillaz or Coldplay have either used characters generally or in a video.

Comparing our products with the Feelings brand helped us add in certain yet subtle objects that were needed in order to make it authentic. For example the record label was put on the magazine advert which we got of the website. We also got The Feeling neon sign off the website so that it would be recognizable by a feeling fan that has visited the website. Looking at ‘Twelve stops and home’ the CD cover and the advert we noticed that the text on the cover was used on the advert as well so we made sure we did the same on our advert, shown above.

Doing a content analysis of these music videos helped me pick up more information on areas such as music genres and what they tend to include in such videos. With quite a few music videos from the same genre (such as The fray or Foo Fighters) having similar aspects in their videos compared to our own music video.

With the music video the whole main theme of the video is 'madness' a lot of quick cuts are included. At main parts where the quick cuts of the carousel is spinning very fast along with flashbacks its similar to the 'Pink' music video 'Who Knew' towards the end where all of the fairground rides are going fast along with quick cuts/flashbacks. There is also a link to Rhiannas music video Disturbia where the main theme is madness.

The robotic moves and the costumes give it a horror theme, along with the dark and creepy settings (smoke, fire, chains).

Putting in colourful cheerful locations in our music video such as the carousel and park also helped tone down the violence behind the story. Making it a theme of madness yet different to Rhiannas approach by using brighter locations compared to darkness and horror.

Another video in particular, ‘ANTHEM’ by Filo & Peri ft Eric Lumiere, is extremely similar to our storyline. Even simple locations like the park are locations we used for our video. In the video they use messages instead of a character to lead the man on where to go.

‘Over my head’ the music videos from The Fray also use text in their videos for main lines. This is the same method we chose. However they use the boy to sing the lyrics, which we did not use in our music videos to avoid complication with our storyline. Typical use in ‘The Fray’ music video is graffiti and a test paper. With our video, throughout we have used graffiti to use on walls or billboards.

In Foo fighter’s music video ‘Everlong’ they include photos to show happy memories. This is a more subtle way of showing memories rather than flashbacks. Using black and white makes it obvious it is a memory from the past as well as it being a photo, which is similar to our sepia effect used in our music video.

In our video, automatically it was the man character that killed the woman. Stereotypically being the ‘stronger’ gender it would be expected to find the man has killed the woman. In scenes such as the graveyard were filmed at night to give it a scarier effect, as it would look less spooky if it were filmed in the daylight. With certain objects were crucial in making the video seem real. Such as the ‘blood’ that was used when the woman was lying on the floor, which without it would have not been obvious she was dead, Therefore without these objects it would make these scenes less realistic.

Construction - Magazine Advertisement

Looking at other Music Advertisements the thing you notice the most is that they always include the Cd Cover on. So we wanted to base the whole page around the CD cover to make it the main focus so people would know what to look for when they find it and it is quite a distinctive cover. Making the CD 3D we thought would link with the previous covers of the Feeling we looked at where the objects on the cover are big sized and 3D.

They are similar in the ways they both include the CD covers and the texts are the same. However The feelings real advertisement seems more simple and laid back whereas our advert is very busy with lots to look at. Over covers such as Foo fighters greatest hits and Them crooked vultures also seem quite plain however we could not completely forget a band as there wasnt one in our music video so i feel the band characters on our advert were very necessary.

Construction - CD cover

Using pictures from the internet we planned out what our cover would look like. We kept the theme of the over feeling covers by having some feet in as every cover has a hand, feet or some sort of body part in. We used the idea of the red shoes as throughout the video she is wearing the same shoes and have some significance to the video so we linked it to the cover. We also used objects such as train tracks and swing chains as we wanted to relate it to our video as much as we could yet still keep the objects relatively subtle not giving too much away.

We completed more or less the same look as our design using our own photos. Overall we felt that this cover wasnt the look we intended for and we used our british one to work off instead.

Construction - Music Video

Working on our music video we used Final cut express. We started off by deleting scenes that either went wrong or didnt look good. After doing this we needed to cut it down and fit it together keeping in mind the changes of the lyrics/beats in the music. We had to be very precise when cutting the clips down as some of the beat changes were very quick. After doing this throughout and making sure the clips are all rendered, we were able to add affects to it such as sepia or black and white. These mainly outlined the flashbacks. To add in the lyrics in the background, we had to change the scene into a photograph then draw on the lyrics, we then changed this photo to be inserted while the scene was playing, making it in the background yet the scenes are still rolling.

Construction - Photoshop

To get an idea of what our album cover would look like we got some basic photos on the internet of what we would want to be on the cover and played around with them on photoshop.

This was the basic idea of what our album would look like

We then played around with some effects that would look appealing and quite liked the effect gave the cover this basic look.

Using the picture we had a look at some of the effects with things such as filter gallery and picked out ones we thought suited the cover best such as 'Film Grain' which is shown above.

We then tried to advance our skills on photoshop such as black and white/colour effects.

Using the rubber tool to make certain things stand out and using the 'Photo Filter' tool to make things a certain shade of colour.

Compared to the original picture of this which was mulit-coloured we set this one out to have the british colours to suit our 'British version' of the cover. As most of the filming was set out in London and we had footage of many London monuments we decided to do a british one and then decide which one we prefered.

For things such as our advert we had to things such as 'invert' the characters as they were drawn in black and were needed in white.

Construction - Working on the cover

Having a look at some of the previous feeling covers we decided to keep with the orginial theme and work off them. We discussed that they mostly usually contain objects with something to do with the video with a few random objects with a pop arty effect. When filming as we went along we took photos of things that we would be able to put on the cover that would reflect on the video yet fit well together.

Construction - Lyrics in text

http://www.makethefrontpage.co.uk/

http://www.makethefrontpage.co.uk/editarticle.aspx

We experimented around in what kind of ways we could use text in our video rather than a band due to the difficulty we thought we would find and the little time margin we had. We thought of things such as using text on a bus advertisement, general billboard or a magazine. So we made a newspaper article using a website with the lyrics imprinted on and a picture of where the dead character would go. However we thought it was best not to use a newspaper as we would have to include it in the video and we didn't have space to fit it in for viewers to get a good clear look at the newspaper as our storyline is packed we didn't have enough room to fit it in.

Construction - Last Night of Filming

We went back to London in the evening to Film things such as the caraousel lit up at night. We filmed most of the flashbacks to contrast with what was going on in the rest of the video. The carousel mainly was the scene that worked best especially when we put it in sepia to give it a flashback effect. We also filmed the beach scene at night as this is when the tide went out. We also put the sepia effect on this as it made it less dreary.