Evaluation Question 4

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

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and anicillary tasks?

Evaluation Question 1

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

Final music video. :D

Here is our final edited version of our music video. We hope you enjoy it and thank you for watching. :D

Final Print Tasks!

Here are our final finished print tasks, the Album cover, the back cover, the inserts and post cards and our magazine album advertisement.

Audience feedback for print tasks. :)

After completing our print tasks, we decided to record a group of classmates to receive feedback from our target audience.We agreed that our target audience was the younger generation, aged 16-20, male and female and interested in indie folk style music. Because of our target audience, we chose certain people in our class that we though fell under this category. To start the discussion, we asked them a series of questions and left them to talk about the answers, the questions included, thoughts on the style of the font and images; the use of two different locations, what they liked and disliked and a rating out of 10. The camera was left to film  so that we could get honest opinions from the group. The first group was all male so we then decided to ask an all female group of girls who fit our target audience, to write down some things that they liked about the task and some things they thought could be changed or improved.
The male group agreed that the locations worked well together and they liked how the images were edited to looked like they were vintage. A lot of them agreed that  the magazine advertisement looked professional and would fit in a real magazine, this means we have captured our target audience.
The female group thought the tasks were organised and all the images and locations worked well together. They said that they thought a lot of the images looked well edited and fit together as a whole project, the only negative feedback was that one person said some of the images from the inserts may have looked better as the front cover.

Audience Research.

This spreadsheet shows our audience research that we have collected by asking people to complete our survey. The results show that most of the audience are under 18, and listen to folk music, which is the genre of our music video. It also shows that most people like to read NME and buy music from HMV or Itunes.

Audience Survey. :)

We have created an online survey for our audience to complete. This will help us distinguish our target audience and find out more about them. We have asked basic questions that relate to our choice of work. Our survey will be placed below, feel free to fill it out, it would be greatly appreciated. :D Thankyou!

Editing begins!

After taking plenty of photos last week and repeatedly filming Brady running around in a field, we are ready to start filming. We need to choose our best clips and add a sepia tone effect, and then reverse half of the video. The music video should be around 4 minutes, half of which being reversed. :)

Starting to film. :)

On Monday we began filming our music video, we went to Herrington Park to film parts of the scene there. After trekking to the top of a hill, we filmed Brady and took photographs while we tried a few different techniques. The weather worked out well as we wanted it to be windy but still sunny. It was a productive day and we got lots filmed. On Wednesday we went to Seaburn Beach and and recorded more for our video. We managed to get a lot of clips of Brady standing by the sea and a few clips of the waves. It was quite cold but not as windy as we expected and because it was still sunny it made the clips look better. We will continue to film more next Monday and Wednesday to finish the video off then begin editing. 

Final Actors. (:

After discussing things in our group, we decided it would be best to use one of the members of our group as our female actress, the actress is Brady. After our search for a male actor was not as successful as we hoped, we had the thought of using Brady's boyfriend Nathan as the male. This means that they will both have a better connection in the video and they will be able to work well together with things being a lot more comfortable.

Insperational Text- Magazine Advert.

This is another inspirational text we found 'The Verve- Love Is Noise'. We think it fits with our genre well and is slightly similar to our other inspirational texts. I like the sepia tone of the image because it looks really detailed and interesting. The title and band name stands out well against the photo, and the font is effective. There is text below giving information about the album, the white looks good against the image, but it is slightly hard to read all of it, so white is maybe not the best colour. There is a limited colour palette but it works, because the image stands out a lot, meaning not as much colour is needed.
Although this is a completely different layout to our flat plan, I think it is a good advert and we could produce something similar to this. I like the vintage effect that is running through our whole idea and this could fit in with the category well. Despite the advert being quite plain, it is very effective and I think it would work well if we produced something like this. 

Youtube videos.

Here are some youtube videos we found that include the type of effects we want to use in out music video. These are similar to how we want our video to look.

Reverse Effect. (:

This is a practice video we took while on our first photo shoot. After the first half of our music video, we want to reverse the next half, by taking the footage and adding a reverse effect. This means the first half will be normal, and the next half will be the same footage, but in reverse. We decided to film two members of the group as a practice and edit the video to see how it would look. The programme we used to edit the clip is Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. We are pleased with the outcome, and we also like the look of the sepia effect, which we managed to add to the footage. We have agreed that those are the types of effects we want to use for out final music video draft.

Insperational text- Album cover

This is another inspirational text that I think fits with the other inspirational texts I've looked at. This is the album cover for Adele 19, I like the shot for the cover image, because it is dark, but her face stands out. I like the shadowing and the bold plain text. I think that it is similar to our other choices, because her face cannot be seen as much, and the image is dark, which is the type of image we want for our cover. For our cover we decided we that we did not want to show all of our models face, which is the type of cover this album has, most of Adele's face cannot be seen which adds mystery. Like most of the other inspirational texts I have looked at, there isn't much colour to the image, it is very limited and mostly black and white. With this CD cover I think the limited colours work well, it allows you to see which part of the cover is the main point to focus on, in this case Adele's face. Apart from black and white, one of the only other colours used is the colour on Adele's face and hair, however even part of that is shaded so it looks black. The title of the album '19' stands out from artist name 'Adele' by using a different font. I think this looks better because it is a good way of separating the two, also the title is in baby pink, so it stands out just a little bit more.

Time Management

This is a timetable for our coursework. We have wrote on important dates that are mainly deadlines for our coursework. This is a way to keep us on target if we can stick to the timetable.

Insperational Texts- Magazine Advertisements.

Below are two magazine advertisements we found that are similar to the magazine advertisement we want to make. The two inspirational texts include four boxed images in the same layout we want to use.

The above advertisement is for The Stone Roses- Second Coming, I think this advert is very simple but shows the same layout that we want to use. and the background works well. The band is featured in the images, but our advertisement will not include the band members, it will include a featured girl who will be in the music video we create. The colour palette is very limited and the yellow quote works well, but we may add more colour for our advert.

This was our favourite choice for the magazine advertisements, as it looks well presented. I love the effect on the photographs, and the photographs themselves. I like the effects on the photos and the multiple layers of other images on top. I think because of the edit on the photos, the black and white background and writing work well and it does not need anymore colour. I think our magazine advertisement should be similar to this because it is traditional and simple, but very effective.



Insperational Texts- Album Covers.

Here are two album covers that I think fit well with the type of album my group want to create. After looking for insperational texts, we came across the first cover which inspired us to use a different cover image. The cover image we wish to use will be a photograph of a tattoo(the tattoo will be on the girl featuring in the music video). The girl we will be featuring has a tattoo on her right shoulder, which is a feather that spreads into birds flying, it is very detailed.

                                     

The cover above is Deftones- Diamond Eyes, we like this album art because it is very simple and limits colours, however it looks interesting. The thing that inspired us about this cover is the owl's wings, we like the way they stand out against the black and the way they are spread out. The owl is very detailed and it imediately caught my eye when I saw it, but t is unlikely that we could get something of this quality, that is what made us think of the feather tattoo. Although the image is very interesting, the colours are very limited, and I think for our cover, we would need to use some form of edit, to make the album cover stand out more and catch peoples attention.  

This album cover is for Robyn- Indestructible, the cover is very simple and black and white, but the bold yellow writing makes it catch your eye. The reason I have chosen this as an insperational text is because, as our models tattoo is on her shoulder, she will need to be standing away from the camera, and we think she should be turned slightly diagnally. The above image shows 'Robyn' turning slightly towards the camera, however we will not be including our models head, you will mainly see her shoulders and possibly her neck. Despite the photo being interesting, the text is far too big so we will need ours to be smaller and possibly not centred.

Photoshoot.

We decided that last week we should take some photographs to create our magazine advertisement and our CD cover. As we showed in our flat plan's we liked the look of photographs at the beach, and in the studio, so that's where we took them. Here are some of the photos I took, some we will use and others we won't, but these are our favourites.

Lyrics. :)

Here are the lyrics to the song we will be using, City And Colour- The Girl.


I wish I could do better by you,
Cause that's what you deserve.
You sacrifice so much of your whole life,
In order for this to work.

While I'm off chasing my own dreams,
Sailing around the world,
Please know that I'm yours to keep,
My beautiful girl.

When you cry a piece of my heart dies,
Knowing that I may have been the cause,
If you were to leave, fulfil someone else's dreams,
I think I might totally be lost.

You don't ask for no diamond rings,
No delicate string of pearls,
That's why I wrote this song to sing,
My beautiful girl.

I wish I could do better by you,
Cause It's what you deserve.
You sacrifice so much of your life,
In order for this to work.

While I'm off chasing my own dreams, (my own dreams)
Sailing around the world, (around the world)
Please know that I'm yours to keep,
My beautiful girl.

When you cry a piece of my heart dies,
Knowing that I may have been the cause,
If you were to leave, fulfil someone else's dreams,
I think I might totally be lost.

But you don't ask for no diamond rings, (diamond rings)
No delicate string of pearls, (string of pearls)
That's why I wrote this song to sing,
My beautiful girl.

But you don't ask for no diamond rings, diamond rings
No delicate string of pearls, string of pearls
That's why I wrote this song to sing,
My beautiful girl.

E-mail to Record Labels.

On behalf of my group I have e-mailed the three record labels that manage the band City and Colour. As they were our plan B, we decided we should make sure we had permission to use their song 'The Girl' and I have sent the following e-mail to the three labels. We have now decided to go with our Plan B idea, as it is more convenient and we like the sound of the song and our storyline. The record labels for City and Colour are Dine Alone Records, Vagrent Records and Arts and Crafts Mexico.

Plan B! :)

As we are creating a music video based on a local band that we know, we decided that a plan B would be necessary in case the band in question are not available, or they change their mind. We decided that using a song we all know and like would be a good way to discuss ideas well and we can agree on things easier. The song we are using as a plan B is City and Colour-The Girl. We think the song fits well with the theme we were already going with, but there are also a few changes we can make. The song is very soft and begins slow and ends slightly faster, which means we can still use our ideal locations. Our video will include a male and a female, whom the storyline will revolve around. The male will have wrote the song which you will see in the video, and the lyrics fit well with some of the ideas we want to include. The video is included below so you can listen to the song yourself.

Storyboard.

This is the storyboard we have made for our music video, this is the general outline and shot types we will be using. We have found images we think fit well with the scenes we have outlined, we have used images because we decided none of us are very talented at drawing and photos look better than stick men. The story board is based on our plan B idea, that we are considering to use in case of a problem with our original idea.

Album cover- Flat Plan

This is the flat plan for the CD/album cover that we will be producing. We wanted to carry on the theme of silhouettes from the advertisement, so we found this image that we think fits well. I think the images goes nicely with the album title, 'When she finds home', and also it shows how we are using range of locations. For the advertisement the photographs are in a studio, but for the album cover we think on location would look better, preferably somewhere like a beach. We discussed this in the group and thought it would be a good idea to try location shots and studio for both projects.
The colours for this image are more varied than the advertisement image, and we agreed that this may work better in this case. As with the advertisement, we will not need the model to wear make-up as her face will probably not be seen, but if we decide it will be, it would only be very slight. We like the type of costume in this image, as it is very summery and it is a nice type of beach wear,  we will no doubt be asking our model to wear a flowing dress and possibly a hat.
The font for the album is the same font used for the advertisement, which we have agreed will stay the bands 'signature' font. We think the black text goes well with the silhouette and stands out very clearly, whereas if we used any other colours it may look dull or clash.
The overall layout for the album cover is very simple, but effective, as everything seems to stand out, and nothing more is needed to make the album look good.

Magazine Advertisement- Flat Plan



This is the flat plan we created for our magazine advertisement, this is for the single that our music video will include. The advertisement is very simple but I think that makes it look better. The band we are using is not very colourful, as their music is generally slow and meaningful. We feel that this is a traditional type of advertisement, but it works to an advantage for us as it fits with the band and the music. For the images we will be using silhouettes as it looks interesting and we feel that it fits well if we use a girl, as a lot of the bands songs are about a girl. For the advertisement we will probably use studio photographs that we take, as it is more professional. This will tie in with the limited colour palette and look traditional instead of complex. The girl will not need to wear make up or any specific clothing because only her shadow will be seen, her clothes and face will be black.

We will be practicing a few different poses for the photographs, to find which one fits the best with the advertisement, we don't want something over the top, as we think the flat plan above looks quite interesting already.
The album name and the band's name are both in the band's font (the font used to recognize the band); the review text and song titles are in Times New Roman font, which is quite a simple font but has a bold effect to it, which we thought worked well with the style. The word 'including' has been put in a calligraphy style font which was found online. We felt that if we used the same font for this word, it would just blend in with the other text.
As for the genuine layout of the advertisement, we thought we should go for a traditional and simple layout as it looks classy yet it still catches the eye of the audience well. We think the image fits well in its position as it is not surrounded by text, and is not too small, but fits nicely in the focus point.

Feedback :)

Here is some feedback I received from the other members of the class of my blog so far.

PITCH- Roles, camera shots, props and costume. :)

After talking within the group, we decided to share out the roles for the task. We decided that I would be the director, as I am used to cameras because I do photography, Brady will be the producer as she is closer to the band and is good at creating ideas, and Alex will be in charge of lighting and sound as she is interested in the genre of music, so she knows how the videos look and music sounds. We will all also share the role of editing.

The camera shots, we decided, would mostly be medium and long shots, to show the location and the full body of the band members. We will add in the occasional close up and medium close up of props and faces.

We would like to include a range of props in our video, obviously instruments like guitars, we'd also like to use a harmonica as the lead singer plays the harmonica in some of his songs. We will use a microphone and maybe some balloons to add colour.

For the costume we like the idea of traditional English countryside clothing, such as waistcoats and shirts, possibly adding a hat as well, we think this clothing fits in well with the music and location.

 

PITCH-Images of possible location.

Here are some images taken of locations is Sunderland that we could possibly use for the video,  Herrington park is a location that we will probably be using for the video.

PITCH- Plot/Location.

Once we finished talking about our ideas in the group, we decided to go with a countryside look for our music video. We originally wanted to film to whole thing in the field, but we think that filming in a documentary style might look good, so we will use a few different locations. The choices for our countryside look are, Herrington Park, Tunstal hill or Mowbray Park. After filming in one of the locations we will find an empty venue, where we will film the band performing. The video will be following the band around, in a documentary style so they aren't really acting, just being themselves, and partially filming them performing in an empty venue possibly bar one. The reason for the empty venue, is to symbolise that the band is not well known and unsigned, so they are only just starting off their career. If we decide to change our idea slightly we may add a few extra people into the video. The genre of the music is Indie Folk, similar to Mumford And Sons and The Kooks.

Moodboard :)

This is my mood board I made for my music video. The group I am in decided that the band we will use is an indie folk band, we also thought it was better to use an original band instead of an already famous band. One of the other members of the group knows a band called Reckoner and their music is similar to the likes of Mumford and Sons and White Lies. Some of the videos we like the look of are Mumford and Sons videos, they are filmed in fields and we thought it would be a good idea to film our music video in some form of field or forrest. The next few posts I will be uploading will show my pitch for my music video idea.