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Construction

Evaluation - Question 1

Q1-In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media texts?

Evaluation - Question 2

question 2 on Prezi

Evaluation - Question 4

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

In our research and planning stage we used a variety of Internet search engines, music websites and social networks in search for an unsigned artist with suitable music for music video construction.

• www.GOOGLE/MYSPACE/YOUTUBE/FACEBOOK.com

Myspace provided us with the initial artist portfolio which included information about the band, tracks from their album and the description of their music genre. The fan page link on their Myspace page also provided us with some knowledge of the target audience for their music. We contacted the band through the social network Facebook for the right to use their music and received permission in the form of messaging. This was done in the matter of hours, the efficient communication channel the network provides saved us precious time for planning and constructing the video.

• Flip camera

We browsed through different music videos on Youtube in the Punk/Indie/Rock music genre and decided a conventional video would include shots of the band with lip sync and instrumental performances. This was an idea that was not applicable to us in reality as the band had split up, we also thought the song was more suitable for a story line based music video. During research we watched The Scientist by Coldplay which used an interesting rewind effect (the video seemed to be rewinding yet the character is perfectly in sync with the song), putting a strong focus on the character and the story. In attempt to copy this technique we used a flip camera to film a few simple walking scenes and later uploaded to Final Cut Pro to apply the rewind effect, however in rewind the footage was jumpy and unusable, a possible explanation is that the footage produced by flip camera was not sophisticated enough for these effects.

• HD camera

For actual filming of the video we used a HD recording camera. This provided us with much better quality pictures than the original SD cameras, which allowed us to produce extreme close up shots as planned (inspired by Ferris Bruellers' day off). A good quality tripod enabled steady filming, while also credible for camera angles such as birds eye view. However, some of the footage produced were prone to bad lighting even though we had used the flash light on the camera , we had to improvise with the colour coordination on Final Cut Pro to make the footage more presentable.

• Final Cut Pro

Inspirations also came from TV and films, we added white flashes to our day dream sequences by applying and modifying the Light Glow effect on Final Cut Pro (as seen on Scrubs, usually a symbol of reality to dream or vice versa transformations). After receiving some feedback which suggested we needed more improvements on clear separation of reality and dreams, we used the Saturation effect to make the day dreams black and white which made the transformation more powerful combined with the white flash. 

Final Cut Pro also allowed us to manipulate with the speed of each footage, this was useful especially for us due to the fast beat of our song. With this technology we were able to slow down or speed up footage for the music, producing a more synchronised music video. We discovered this when we produced an animated version of Here We Go Again, which was a visual basic outline of the video created by converting each frame of our storyboard from a HD camera photo to a footage edited on Final Cut Pro. This showed us we had insufficient footage to complete to video, which inspired us to lengthen some of the parts.

However, there was no fast forward button on Final Cut Pro for the speed of HD videos exporting into Quicktime movies, especially when clashed with slow Internet speed, the exportation can take up to 30 minutes or more. This wasted valuable time for construction therefore delayed completion time, leaving little time for evaluation.

• Photoshop

For the digipak cover and magazine advertisement, we decided to use photos from a studio shoot for a more professional outlook. The original idea for the CD front cover was a 3x3 grid of photos of the character with different expressions on his face, this was inspired by a magazine advert of Kate Moss. However we were unable to pursuit this idea as most of the photos produced were out of focus, which may be due to faulty setting of the motion sensor on our camera. 

We improvised with front and back full body shots of the character as the front and back covers of the album, creating a 360 presentation. By using the blur tool we created a mystified, out of focus look as we blurred the outline of the character from the back. As for the magazine advert cover we created a black and white layer using one of the in focus mid body shots of the character, leaving only the tie in red using the eraser. This helped created a visually bold, statement making advertisement base photo, with the adding of a few other simplistic yet eye catching items including the band logo made on Photoshop, we successfully created a professional and eye catching advertisement cover with a fuss free theme.

• Others

We used online software such as Wordle and Prezi frequently in our research and planning, construction and evaluation as they provide visual elements to our blog balancing the text which makes it more interesting to read.

Technology brought both efficiency and limitations to our media production. On one hand it provided the technical platform for us to practise our creativity. On the other hand, we were reliants to these technologies. Any technical breakdowns/insufficiencies we had indicated changes to the original plan, and became barriers to completing the task.

Evaluation - Question 3

Evaluation - Question 3. on Prezi

The audience feedback made a big difference to our final outcome of our music video. Picking fault with the video allowed us to achieve something better, allowing the video to connect to the our target audience, creating something enjoyable to watch.

The dream sequence was said to be confusing and the lighting in quite a few scenes were too dark too. Making these subtle changes to our music video made alot of difference. Adding the black and white effect to the dream sequence and changing the lighting slightly on a few scenes made the video alot easier to understand and the continuity between each scene was alot better.

Without the audience feedback, our music video wouldn't be as effective, but with the feedback given we were able to produce a creative, story based music video.

Magazine Cover

This is what we have designed for our magazine advert for Here We Go Again. Unlike some of the conventional music advertisements which mainly focus on the image of the artist and good reviews from various critics to sell their product, we decided to go with a simpler but bold idea.

We chose this close up picture as it's more attention grabbing than the full body shots. The idea of the black bar covering his eyes was inspired by an image in the media magazine of A Prophet, the mystery added to the character corresponded well to the theme of identity that was discussed in the article. We thought this was well suited to the theme of our music (mod) and added an 'X' factor to our character, indicating it can be anyone listening to our music. Originally we had the background in colour but we decided it stood out more in black and white with only the tie in colour. 

Here are the comments we received:

'The review and band logo and the name of the album's positions are well balanced.'
'Good idea of corresponding the art work of Out Now with Here We Go Again.'
'Looks like he is wearing the band logo as a badge on his shirt, low key but attention grabbing promotional strategy'
'One review makes a strong statement, it delivers the message without too much fuss.' 

Digipak - Front and Back Cover

After the shoot took place, we looked at the photos took in more depth. We liked the idea of the 3 x 3 photographs inspired by Corrine Day's imaages of Kate Moss. We was unable to achieve this as the amount of time we had, we were unable to take enough photos that would work with this type of presentation.

We decided to go with the idea of having the front view of the character on the front cover, and the back view of him on the back cover - showing 360 view of him. We added the logo 'Evanfly' to both the covers and kept the writing of the song titles in the same style and colour of the logo too.

Before deciding our final design for our front and back cover, we experimented with different colour fonts to see what would match the colour scheme. Also, to keep with the genre/ theme of Evanfly. 

We knew we wanted to have either red, blue or white writing, but couldn't decide on what would look best.

We experimented with each one, and decided to change the lay-out slightly by moving the black bar to the left and having both, blue and red font to match the logo 'Evanfly'.

Photoshoot- Digipack

On Friday 28th of January, we did a photo shoot for our digipack (magazine cover, album cover and CD). We had the photography room for 45 minutes so our time was limited. We decided to try all different ideas for our digipack as we still hadn't decided for sure which idea we were going to use. We also wanted to do this just in case the idea we chose didn't look as we intended it to.
As usual, we ran into some difficulties. First of all, we did not have all the props. As you will see, we didn't have the glasses he wore in the video. Secondly, our model had sensitive eyes, so the flash on the camera was affecting him, therefore we couldn't take as many pictures as we'd have liked. Also, the pictures we took were quite blurred.
Overall, these problems made this day harder than expected. We managed to get it done in the end and hopefully we can use these photos for our digipack

Magazine covers ideas

The logo must be clearly displayed somewhere on the advertisement.
An idea is for the guy from our music video but with his tie, tied around his head in a Rambo like way indicating his aggression.
The potato may be somehow involved in this.
Also a black bar used to censor explicit content from television used to cover his eyes- this would be created in post-production.
3x3 portraits.
Back and front pictures of him like in the music album.

Audience feedback!

(Click to Enlarge)

Disc and Title Draft

digipak draft

Digipak Ideas for Shoot

We came up with an idea for what the digipak may look like:

The front cover could be a straight on view of the main character looking into the camera dressed in his work uniform against a white background. The title 'Evanfly' and their logo will be positioned above.

The back cover could also be a portrait of the main cover, but the back view of him. Keeping the idea of front and back with the cd case being front and back too.

For the design of the disk we thought of several ideas: 

The first idea is, we could show the side views of the character too, showing a 360 view. 

Second, having the lyrics printing all over the disc in different sizes. Having the disc black with White writing, contrasting with the front and back cover. 

For the back cover:

If having the back view of the character, we could make him slightly blurry with the other songs from the album printed on top. 

Digipak Fonts

We downloaded different fonts from dafont.com that we liked that we might possibly use for our digipak. Our favorites are PhontPhreaks, Quid Pro Quo and Soap Store.

Digipak

On the 14th of January we arranged to shoot our digipack photos. Unfortunately this did not happen. 

We have rearranged to do it on the 28th. 

11th January

On Tuesday we uploaded our footage to the computer and started editing. Typically, the computer was very slow therefore we didn't manage to finish it. We believe we can finish editing the rough cut on Thursday.

THE END OF FILMING!

We have finally finished filming the scenes for the rest of our video today! Throughout the entire filming process we came across some obstacles such as:

• Bad weather (wet park scene), however we thought it suited rather well to the depressed theme.
• Tripod. We had to change some of the camera angles (some were filmed by hand held camera) we planned to film due to the unfamiliar use of the tripod and some limitation it provided.
• Camera. We planned to have one day of filming, however the battery died the first time filming before we were able to finish our video hence a change in filming schedule, we are also slightly behind on the project because of that.
• Availability of locations and actors. As we all have different time schedules and live in different areas, it was difficult to get everyone together for several hours of filming. The office is also a working environment. We had to disrupt the work of my parents and some others' schedules in order to film in their working environment.

Change of Plans- Improve Unfinished Video

We were unable to film yesterday (Wednesday 5th Jan) due to the absence of one of the group members. This disrupted our original plan of editing the footage in the lesson today, so we watched the incomplete music video again to look for areas for improvement. We all agreed on the lighting being a big issue for the continuity of our video despite it was said to be only a minor imperfection in the audience feedback.

Original video:

The lighting issue is especially obvious at 0:11, to improve we used several features on Final Cut Pro. First one being the 'Desaturate' effect provided in Video Transitions, it transformed the footage into simple black and white. This is the same affect we used on the day dream sequences. We then modified the brightness and contrast balance on the footage, a nature brighter lighting was achieved using this feature. Finally we deepened the original colours of objects in the video using Colour Correction, this balanced out the overall grey tone of the background.

Improved video:

PLAN PLAN PLAN!

Today we decided that we were going to continue filming the rest of the video on wednesday the 5th of January. We also decided what our album cover will look like, and when to shoot it.

NEW Digipak IDEAS

Idea 1: A screenshot picture of the character in the office, appeared to depressed, bored of life etc.

Idea 2: Band logo 'Evanfly' against plain background. Big fonts.

Idea 3: Character in a busy street with blurred background. Similar to Avril Lavigne's Let Go album cover.

Idea 4: Single image, pop art, bold, eye catching. Similar to Dandy Warhol's album cover. At the moment we are considering the idea of a hand holding a potato with a sad face drawn on it.

Idea 5: Studio shoot. Plain background, the character and the band logo.

Idea 6: Similar to Madonna's Celebration album cover. We thought this would be fun to do and breaks the conventional Rock/Punk album artworks. This idea of imitation of a real classic media product was inspired by the popular TV show Glee, which received strong positive feedbacks from its viewers.

Audience Feedback!

We showed our video in progress to the class, and got a mixture of feedbacks. We were concerned that our story would cause confusion due to the rapid changing between scenes. The clarity of the day dream sequences was also questionable.

We were also worried the lighting in the video would affect the continuity of the video, however there were no comments about it when we showed the video to the class, and when we asked them about it, they said it was hardly noticeable.

However some classmates did mention that our dream sequences were difficult to identify despite the white flashes, which were not enough to clarify the switching between reality and dream due to the speed of our video. Taking this comment into serious consideration we discussed the idea of having the day dreams in black and white. After much experimentation, we applied the 'Desaturate' effect to the day dream sections. We all agreed that the idea was much better delivered after this improvement.

Reality:

 Flash:

Day dream: