This assignment consists of evaluating our media projects that we have created during the last few weeks. Those projects were a music video and two ancillary texts;one being a magazine advert of the band and the chosen track and the second being a Digipak of the music video and track.
To evaluate the music video we are using Goodwin's Music Video Analysis Theory factors.
First of all I should explain what our music video consisted of.Our chosen track "Lights & Music" was by a current Australian band named "Cut Copy". This band would probably be associated with the "Indie" genre as it consists of multiple members in the band and have a soft rock theme, however this band uses upbeat and electronic sounds to differentiate itself from other popular bands.
We chose this track as it had a "happy-go-lucky" feeling to it, and creates a friendly/humourous theme in our minds. This may have been our biggest influence to what our music video narrative would be.
Our narrative was a basic concept of a male individual getting ready for a night out, to have a good time. Throughout the story it demonstrates the character being intoxicated and demonstrates a stereotypical youth's habits. It is often seen in music video's to have a narrative following a particular character throught the song to unravel their mission/adventure/day or life.
However in this case, we had been previously watching popular music video's and had viewed one that stuck in mind. The famous British band "The Prodigy" had a chocking and explicit music video for their track "Smack My Bitch Up" not only did the track's name find to be offensive but so did the video's context.
What we liked about this video is that it followed a character through the whole video and unravel a story.
In our music video we failed to bring much performance, which would have probably been expected for a Indie type song. But including performance to our narrative proved to be hard to find relevance. Instead we used minimal characters but the one.However to captivate the audience we used the idea of looking through someone else's perspective. We did so by filming a large percentage of our footage at eye level as to represent the camera as the character's eyes. And of course we needed typical music video genre characteristics such as close up's of the main character;this also helped us to demonstrate the characters intoxicated state. We also demonstrated this by using medium long shots to show the characters body language and movement.
After completing the music video we had to create a magazine advert, so in effort to create a realistic magazine advert we looked at already existing magazine articles and advertisments and found that they used minimal visuals and less information then expected.
However we create our's by including an image of the band; to create recognition, it's name and a few of their track's names, a release date and areas to buy or download the album/tracks. Including where the tracks can be bought such as stores (Virgin,HMV,Amazon) or Itunes premotes stop to illegal downloading. We kept the advert simple,hopefully intersting enough to grab the reader's attention and encourage them to pursue more intrest to the band and it's music. Our second ancillary text was a Digipak, digipaks are a patented style of CD (compact disk) or DVD (digital video disk) packaging. Our Digipak was bright and vivid,captivating the audience. However it was only so because of the band's logo,which we chose to use. Not only is this logo used in posters but it is used in every item available for the public to purchase. Therefore we only felt it was aproppriate to use it to create a theme. We used the logo in the front cover and inside the Didgipak,to clearly demonstrate who this Digipak is by and what it is selling. We used the same colours used in the logo into stripes to list the tracks available in the Digipak. We also added the DVD logo to our product to make it more realistic and to inform what the Digipak consists of to a potential buyer.
After completing all of these products we had audience and peer to peer reviews. As expected this gave us an evaluating perspective to clarify what was good and bad. This was incredibly helpful as it emphasised our strengths and weaknesses of our project. For example, as expected our peer told us that we missed performance in the video and that our Digipak should have used darker writing to be more ledgable. This gave us the chance to correct what could be corrected.
Peer review was deffinatly the most important as the comments given were valid and precise.
Through out the whole making of our product we relied and searched for all our information on the Internet. We constantly blogged our progress,and meeting deadlines.Sites such as Youtube, to watch already existing video's and to load our own helped us. Wikipedia gave us information on the band and where they were from alos giving names which we used in our magazine advert.We also used Myspace to contact the band asking permission to use their track for our project, unfortunatly we had no reply. We has access to great programs such as AS Photoshop and Final Cut Express to edit and create our music video and ancillary texts.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Evaluation
The Genre of music we were working with was Electro Pop.Genre characteristics for electro pop include, Dance routine, Perfomance and lipsyncing.
Our Product’s were a music video, advert poster and a dig pack for the artist’s Cut Copy and specifically their song light and music. The song is of Electro pop genre with hints of Dance and Indie rock.
Our video is a narrative of the song. The story we tried to illustrate with the video was that of a band member performing the track under the influence of drugs and ‘tripping’ out on the streets. The main thought process that lead us to choose this scenario is that the genre characteristic highly associated with electro pop is the use and presence of party drugs. We took this into account and decided to go with it, as it would be something the audience would be familiar with.
The more common or conventional format for a band music video is one in which all the band members are presented and usually involves a choreographed dance routine. Therefore in comparison , our music video was different to the convention , as it focused on one character rather than a whole band. However we still incorporated most of the conventions of a band music video such as, lip-syncing and a performance.
The video is focused on one character , the character takes a pill and starts to trip out. Because the pill taking is right at the start of the music video it gives the viewer an idea of what the video is about as well as keep them engaged to see how events unfold as a result of the character taking the pill.
Our video was conventional in terms of the way approached the ideas of lip-syncing and having a performance. We used Goodwin’s analysis of music videos to research how other electro bands went about having a performance in their music video. One of music video in particular that caught our attention was the Music video of ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ By Prodigy. This video was the most similar video to what our pre production ideas where. This is because we intended to have the video mainly recorded by Point Of view shots and these are heavily used in the video smack my bitch. Particularly the opening scene of the smack my bitch up video is similar to ours as both videos start in a bathroom showing the character getting ready to go on a night out through point of view shots. Another point of Goodwin’s that we took on board was the notion of looking and voyeuristic treatment of the female body. In one scene we had our character walking past a shop that sells female underwear and him walking up close to the window to take a look and he starts to touch the window in a sexually suggestive way.
Our music video , poster and dig pack compliment each other a items of promotional use. We used each one to target a specific aspect of marketing. The video features very little presence of a band , this is was so that the song and narrative of the video where the main focus of the audience. The advertising poster on the other hand features a large picture of the band on it. This is because the poster as a media tool is more suitable to rely a more detailed representation of the band as interviews and comments from the band where on it in order for the audience to have a better understanding of the band. The DVD cover as a promotional tool was focused on selling the whole package and more importantly the band , as a brand. It therefore featured the cut copy logo as the sticking image on the design of the cover. This makes the DVD easily recognisable and easily associated with the band cut copy.
Audience feedback for the final product was positive. Through out the production we found that feedback was important in helping as achieve the final product that we did. After our first filming session we learnt from the feedback the main thing that was missing from our video was a performance and lip-syncing. We were going to include these in our final product anyway but the feedback emphasised the importance of having a performance and lip-syncing in our video.
We also learnt that the story/narrative of our video was clear and well understood by the audience as the audience saw the relation between the character taking the pill and tripping out with the visual effects we used such as the kaleidoscope effect which emphasised the character being under the influence.The psychedelic lights with the electronic bass line. This was the feedback we got based on Goodwin’s first point of analysis which is does the music video represent genre characteristics, ’Possible drug influence mixed with filter effects, kaleidoscope. Also drugs are connected with electronic music nowadays. Would expect more lip syncing for genre of music.’
However we also learnt some negatives from the feedback such as , not enough lip syncing. from this we have learnt that in order to create a very good product there should be a proportionally amount of a lip-syncing or performance to go with the narrative/story of the video.
Our video project was created with the use of programs and applications such as , Mozilla firefox, Final Cut, Photo booth and various internet based resources such as you tube, wikipedia, and blogger. These applications and software were very useful as they were used for most of the work that we did. Most of our research of videos and ideas was internet based mainly on the video sharing site you tube. this gave us an almost unlimited access to the media products we wanted to view. Watching music video’s on you tube enabled us to compare existing products to the video ideas that we had. Due to copy right concerns we had to contact the band in order to get their approval for us to use their song and create a music video for it, we where able to contact the my space through the social networking site My space. Without out the technology we had this would have been a very lengthy process to try and get hold of the band and would have hindered us from progressing to the pre production stage.
Chisanga P.
Our Product’s were a music video, advert poster and a dig pack for the artist’s Cut Copy and specifically their song light and music. The song is of Electro pop genre with hints of Dance and Indie rock.
Our video is a narrative of the song. The story we tried to illustrate with the video was that of a band member performing the track under the influence of drugs and ‘tripping’ out on the streets. The main thought process that lead us to choose this scenario is that the genre characteristic highly associated with electro pop is the use and presence of party drugs. We took this into account and decided to go with it, as it would be something the audience would be familiar with.
The more common or conventional format for a band music video is one in which all the band members are presented and usually involves a choreographed dance routine. Therefore in comparison , our music video was different to the convention , as it focused on one character rather than a whole band. However we still incorporated most of the conventions of a band music video such as, lip-syncing and a performance.
The video is focused on one character , the character takes a pill and starts to trip out. Because the pill taking is right at the start of the music video it gives the viewer an idea of what the video is about as well as keep them engaged to see how events unfold as a result of the character taking the pill.
Our video was conventional in terms of the way approached the ideas of lip-syncing and having a performance. We used Goodwin’s analysis of music videos to research how other electro bands went about having a performance in their music video. One of music video in particular that caught our attention was the Music video of ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ By Prodigy. This video was the most similar video to what our pre production ideas where. This is because we intended to have the video mainly recorded by Point Of view shots and these are heavily used in the video smack my bitch. Particularly the opening scene of the smack my bitch up video is similar to ours as both videos start in a bathroom showing the character getting ready to go on a night out through point of view shots. Another point of Goodwin’s that we took on board was the notion of looking and voyeuristic treatment of the female body. In one scene we had our character walking past a shop that sells female underwear and him walking up close to the window to take a look and he starts to touch the window in a sexually suggestive way.
Our music video , poster and dig pack compliment each other a items of promotional use. We used each one to target a specific aspect of marketing. The video features very little presence of a band , this is was so that the song and narrative of the video where the main focus of the audience. The advertising poster on the other hand features a large picture of the band on it. This is because the poster as a media tool is more suitable to rely a more detailed representation of the band as interviews and comments from the band where on it in order for the audience to have a better understanding of the band. The DVD cover as a promotional tool was focused on selling the whole package and more importantly the band , as a brand. It therefore featured the cut copy logo as the sticking image on the design of the cover. This makes the DVD easily recognisable and easily associated with the band cut copy.
Audience feedback for the final product was positive. Through out the production we found that feedback was important in helping as achieve the final product that we did. After our first filming session we learnt from the feedback the main thing that was missing from our video was a performance and lip-syncing. We were going to include these in our final product anyway but the feedback emphasised the importance of having a performance and lip-syncing in our video.
We also learnt that the story/narrative of our video was clear and well understood by the audience as the audience saw the relation between the character taking the pill and tripping out with the visual effects we used such as the kaleidoscope effect which emphasised the character being under the influence.The psychedelic lights with the electronic bass line. This was the feedback we got based on Goodwin’s first point of analysis which is does the music video represent genre characteristics, ’Possible drug influence mixed with filter effects, kaleidoscope. Also drugs are connected with electronic music nowadays. Would expect more lip syncing for genre of music.’
However we also learnt some negatives from the feedback such as , not enough lip syncing. from this we have learnt that in order to create a very good product there should be a proportionally amount of a lip-syncing or performance to go with the narrative/story of the video.
Our video project was created with the use of programs and applications such as , Mozilla firefox, Final Cut, Photo booth and various internet based resources such as you tube, wikipedia, and blogger. These applications and software were very useful as they were used for most of the work that we did. Most of our research of videos and ideas was internet based mainly on the video sharing site you tube. this gave us an almost unlimited access to the media products we wanted to view. Watching music video’s on you tube enabled us to compare existing products to the video ideas that we had. Due to copy right concerns we had to contact the band in order to get their approval for us to use their song and create a music video for it, we where able to contact the my space through the social networking site My space. Without out the technology we had this would have been a very lengthy process to try and get hold of the band and would have hindered us from progressing to the pre production stage.
Chisanga P.
Ben Tomlinson Evaluation
Assignment Media Ancillary Task Ben Tomlinson
In this timed assignment i will be answering a series of controlled questions which we have been set. Questions include the explanation of our idea and development stages and as well as the incorporation of or audiences idea’s which helped us to create our music video to the best of our capability.
When analysisng a piece of media performance or video you need to take into account the idea of incorporating the idea’s developed in Andrew Goodwins Points. We decided to look at the set of points in the creation stages of this product as we believed that looking at the points of Goodwin as guidelines the final product would turn out to be technically correct. The first point ideas of genre characteristics and how they are demonstrated we feel have be shown to the audience quiet clearly. Goodwin’s points quite clearly underline certain foundations when analysing a pice of written work and follow a strict criteria, so these proved useful to look at. The points of analysis range from idea’s such as how the music video demonstrates specific genre characteristics, the relationship between the lyrics and visuals, the demands that the record label put in place to be met by the band and the use of inter-textual content in the video.
Our production uses narrative that tells a story of a young male’s night out in a busy town or area and the explicit things he gets up-to. Typically for our genre of music (Electro, Indie, Pop) the video consists of a strong output of stage or performance based visual’s so we took this idea and incorporated elements into our production, such as the lead character playing the drum and singing along to small sections like the chorus. Using the same techniques as modern music video directors it gives a professional look as well as the viewer being able to connect it to modern bands which follow the same genre criteria. We looked deeply into idea’s en scene and what is shown in each frame we have made the other micro elements follow the genre criteria. Typically Indie Pop bands have consistent techniques in which the viewer can relate to as being part of this genre. Camerawork played a consistent role through out as we need to incorporate a range of different shots as part of the genre characteristics these include close ups such as in our production the images of the face of the actor in his drunken state and when he is performing to the camera. We decided to incorporate a range of mid shots and medium shots to give the piece a sense of space and the idea that the character has been dropped into an unknown location.
I believe the incorporation of our media products with our ancillary task products give the overall look to our digipacks a very professional look for the promotion of the band. I believe our main product relates clearly to our music video production, but i believe with the addition of our ancillary products it gives the viewer the sense of the bands flare and artistic style and with the use of bright colours and bold text types it draws the buyer into purchasing the digipack as one complete and professional looking product. The use of a reoccurring image helps the viewers and buyers to recognise the band, such as the the multi coloured spiraling which is consistent on the front cover as well as inside the digipack and some usage on the magazine advert. The consistency of the colour, shape and theme really shows the representation of the band’s idea’s and creative flare.
Without the ancillary product material the digipack would be fairly vague and not outline the clear message that we are trying to entice buyers into purchasing this product. Tracks are often downloaded illegally so with the added extra’s which are included in the digipack it gives the buyer a little bit more than the illegal download with the added ancillary task products. Once the completion of the digi pack ancillary task’s we completed task’s such as peer to peer review which would give us clear idea’s in ways to develop our final products to the next level. The feedback given by our viewers proved helpful and interesting, by this i mean it was interesting to hear what people thought work well and not so well which gave us a clear idea of what parts to change and not to change. Most of our information on what worked and what didn’t work came from peer to peer reviewing, this is because it is easy to gain information from people who will probably be purchasing or listening to this band as it is aimed at the indie pop generation which tends to be the age group of our peer’s.
Audience feedback helped us gain real information quickly and seemed a reliable source when asking people what they believed worked and didn’t work, and most of the idea’s people came up with to try and develop our idea’s were sensible and constructive. These were all written and posted on our blog, facebook and you-tube accounts so we could gain the information quickly and put the constructive idea’s in our final pieces which we believed worked well.
Modern technology proved vital in the production of the complete package. In the first stages of this project we mainly focussed on information gaining and evidence work. Blogs were created and we were then able to post our feelings idea’s and pictures on the blog which would help us develop our idea’s also allowing us to go back and change our idea’s and keep the development stage rolling.
Google and other information gaining websites proved useful as it allowed us to check out the bands history an example of this is when producing the magazine advert we needed to gain information on the band members names and the background history of the band, so we were able to visit sites such as www.wikipedia.org to gain information from our main station “Google”. Social Networking sites as well helped the development process as in some cases we needed to ask the band specific question such as is it ok to use your name in some promotional material for our school project. The social networking websites were “Facebook” and “Myspace” and gave us in depth and relevant information for our band, all building up to a large case study which we would use for idea’s when creating our music video’s.
We are lucky enough in the media department to be a great resource as it has been developed with the latest technology and programs which editing suite’s and company’s use to this very day. Our main base station was our iMac which proved useful in creating our final production’s. The use of Final Cut Pro (FCP) gave use and easy and reasonably quick program in which we could chop up our footage and piece together the relevant parts. Ancillary product’s involves a static visual aspect and we created our DVD cover and Magazine advert on photoshop giving us a range of colours and backgrounds etc... in which to work of, this gave our final product a professional look. Once editing was completed we as a group set up you-tube accounts so that we could share our video with the media world so we could receive feedback on the whole project.
Footage was shot on hand held digital camera’s (not Hd), they had all the usual function’s zooming, black and white effects and was really the life line of the whole product. Most of the new technology used really did prove to us that a project like this could be completed. The software and camera’s we used really proved to us that even if we weren’t in a team small productions like our music video could be completed quite easily.
Overall our production and outcome of our project went really well, and as a group we feel we have put a lot of time and energy into it and are very pleased with the out come.
In this timed assignment i will be answering a series of controlled questions which we have been set. Questions include the explanation of our idea and development stages and as well as the incorporation of or audiences idea’s which helped us to create our music video to the best of our capability.
When analysisng a piece of media performance or video you need to take into account the idea of incorporating the idea’s developed in Andrew Goodwins Points. We decided to look at the set of points in the creation stages of this product as we believed that looking at the points of Goodwin as guidelines the final product would turn out to be technically correct. The first point ideas of genre characteristics and how they are demonstrated we feel have be shown to the audience quiet clearly. Goodwin’s points quite clearly underline certain foundations when analysing a pice of written work and follow a strict criteria, so these proved useful to look at. The points of analysis range from idea’s such as how the music video demonstrates specific genre characteristics, the relationship between the lyrics and visuals, the demands that the record label put in place to be met by the band and the use of inter-textual content in the video.
Our production uses narrative that tells a story of a young male’s night out in a busy town or area and the explicit things he gets up-to. Typically for our genre of music (Electro, Indie, Pop) the video consists of a strong output of stage or performance based visual’s so we took this idea and incorporated elements into our production, such as the lead character playing the drum and singing along to small sections like the chorus. Using the same techniques as modern music video directors it gives a professional look as well as the viewer being able to connect it to modern bands which follow the same genre criteria. We looked deeply into idea’s en scene and what is shown in each frame we have made the other micro elements follow the genre criteria. Typically Indie Pop bands have consistent techniques in which the viewer can relate to as being part of this genre. Camerawork played a consistent role through out as we need to incorporate a range of different shots as part of the genre characteristics these include close ups such as in our production the images of the face of the actor in his drunken state and when he is performing to the camera. We decided to incorporate a range of mid shots and medium shots to give the piece a sense of space and the idea that the character has been dropped into an unknown location.
I believe the incorporation of our media products with our ancillary task products give the overall look to our digipacks a very professional look for the promotion of the band. I believe our main product relates clearly to our music video production, but i believe with the addition of our ancillary products it gives the viewer the sense of the bands flare and artistic style and with the use of bright colours and bold text types it draws the buyer into purchasing the digipack as one complete and professional looking product. The use of a reoccurring image helps the viewers and buyers to recognise the band, such as the the multi coloured spiraling which is consistent on the front cover as well as inside the digipack and some usage on the magazine advert. The consistency of the colour, shape and theme really shows the representation of the band’s idea’s and creative flare.
Without the ancillary product material the digipack would be fairly vague and not outline the clear message that we are trying to entice buyers into purchasing this product. Tracks are often downloaded illegally so with the added extra’s which are included in the digipack it gives the buyer a little bit more than the illegal download with the added ancillary task products. Once the completion of the digi pack ancillary task’s we completed task’s such as peer to peer review which would give us clear idea’s in ways to develop our final products to the next level. The feedback given by our viewers proved helpful and interesting, by this i mean it was interesting to hear what people thought work well and not so well which gave us a clear idea of what parts to change and not to change. Most of our information on what worked and what didn’t work came from peer to peer reviewing, this is because it is easy to gain information from people who will probably be purchasing or listening to this band as it is aimed at the indie pop generation which tends to be the age group of our peer’s.
Audience feedback helped us gain real information quickly and seemed a reliable source when asking people what they believed worked and didn’t work, and most of the idea’s people came up with to try and develop our idea’s were sensible and constructive. These were all written and posted on our blog, facebook and you-tube accounts so we could gain the information quickly and put the constructive idea’s in our final pieces which we believed worked well.
Modern technology proved vital in the production of the complete package. In the first stages of this project we mainly focussed on information gaining and evidence work. Blogs were created and we were then able to post our feelings idea’s and pictures on the blog which would help us develop our idea’s also allowing us to go back and change our idea’s and keep the development stage rolling.
Google and other information gaining websites proved useful as it allowed us to check out the bands history an example of this is when producing the magazine advert we needed to gain information on the band members names and the background history of the band, so we were able to visit sites such as www.wikipedia.org to gain information from our main station “Google”. Social Networking sites as well helped the development process as in some cases we needed to ask the band specific question such as is it ok to use your name in some promotional material for our school project. The social networking websites were “Facebook” and “Myspace” and gave us in depth and relevant information for our band, all building up to a large case study which we would use for idea’s when creating our music video’s.
We are lucky enough in the media department to be a great resource as it has been developed with the latest technology and programs which editing suite’s and company’s use to this very day. Our main base station was our iMac which proved useful in creating our final production’s. The use of Final Cut Pro (FCP) gave use and easy and reasonably quick program in which we could chop up our footage and piece together the relevant parts. Ancillary product’s involves a static visual aspect and we created our DVD cover and Magazine advert on photoshop giving us a range of colours and backgrounds etc... in which to work of, this gave our final product a professional look. Once editing was completed we as a group set up you-tube accounts so that we could share our video with the media world so we could receive feedback on the whole project.
Footage was shot on hand held digital camera’s (not Hd), they had all the usual function’s zooming, black and white effects and was really the life line of the whole product. Most of the new technology used really did prove to us that a project like this could be completed. The software and camera’s we used really proved to us that even if we weren’t in a team small productions like our music video could be completed quite easily.
Overall our production and outcome of our project went really well, and as a group we feel we have put a lot of time and energy into it and are very pleased with the out come.
Monday, 7 December 2009
Audio Commentary
To complete our project we have been making an audio commentary of the whole package it involves discussing what we have done and achieved during the last few weeks. This includes commentary about our music video and our ancillary tasks; most of the commentary was describing how we completed our tasks and how they had a connection with one another. It is essential to have this completed correctly and up to standards as this is worth around 20 marks.
We decided to have all of us involved in the audio commentary, simply because we have created it as a visual commentary. For example: We all had discussion topics to individually evaluate, and the commentary ends with all members evaluating the project. Making the audio commentary a visual was easier then expected as it is basically a discussion topic, even if our environment which we had to film in was not visually attractive, it was a familiar area so it kept us at ease. However even so it was hard to not have unnecessary pauses during the middle of a description but we realized that was going to happen with or without practice. Editing filmed footage that can be used is tougher then we predicted as some material simply wasn't appropriate or good enough to use, however cutting some parts out meant that we didn't have a continuous flow in the video. Trying to make this task seriously was challenging, because most of us were not use to being filmed.But this was predictable and we just had to have a few trials in filming until we got good material.
We decided to have all of us involved in the audio commentary, simply because we have created it as a visual commentary. For example: We all had discussion topics to individually evaluate, and the commentary ends with all members evaluating the project. Making the audio commentary a visual was easier then expected as it is basically a discussion topic, even if our environment which we had to film in was not visually attractive, it was a familiar area so it kept us at ease. However even so it was hard to not have unnecessary pauses during the middle of a description but we realized that was going to happen with or without practice. Editing filmed footage that can be used is tougher then we predicted as some material simply wasn't appropriate or good enough to use, however cutting some parts out meant that we didn't have a continuous flow in the video. Trying to make this task seriously was challenging, because most of us were not use to being filmed.But this was predictable and we just had to have a few trials in filming until we got good material.
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Ancillary Product Evaluation from Group 38
The overall view from our group for this digipack is that it works well with the video. The magazine advert is quite a contrast from the DVD cover, but still entices the customer to find out more information on the artist. A band of similar genre would produce a magazine advert and DVD like this so they have the genre characteristics spot on.
Unfortunately you are not able to see the lettering on the DVD cover so it would of been more appealing if the writing was more bold. There is no information of the back of the DVD so you would not know what the artist was like unless you knew who they are.
All in all it's well pretty.
Good Job.
Unfortunately you are not able to see the lettering on the DVD cover so it would of been more appealing if the writing was more bold. There is no information of the back of the DVD so you would not know what the artist was like unless you knew who they are.
All in all it's well pretty.
Good Job.
