Final Music Video

Shannon Evaluation Question 1

Shannon Evaluation Question 2

Shannon Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Q3
by: shannonmedia


Video Feedback



EQ32
by: shannonmedia

Digipak and Poster Feedback


Our audience feedback has been extremely helpful when developing our products. From our 25 word pitch, all the way to our final video. This feedback was useful as it allowed us to identify the weaker elements and change them in order to achieve a better result. I feel that our video has improved a lot from our first draft, this is thanks to the feedback we were given by the target audience.

After screening our animatic, we answered any questions that our audience had about problems we might face when filming and ensured we had a clear vision and plan about what we wanted to do. The main feedback we got was to make sure our star was singing throughout and to include plenty of close ups. We took this advice on board and produced a first draft video. We got a lot of criticism in response to this, which is what we expected for a first draft. It became apparent the outdoor shots were not popular amongst our target audience so we made it our priority to replace these shots with new footage, indoors. Despite the feedback of needing to re-film the shots with the boy, we were unable to do so therefore we added an effect to those shots to add interest for the audience.

Our second draft saw the introduction of lots of re-filmed shots including some of which in HD. We got very positive feedback towards these shots. Unfortunately, these now made our other shots look weak and we were advised to re-film the weaker shots. As well as this, our feedback towards the footage with the male role was still negative so we made the decision to find a new male role to act in our video. We ensured their was minimal height difference between the male and female role due to our feedback on this previously. Our final video is a huge improvement from our draft, we are pleased that we received the criticism that we did as we have been able to listen, take it on board and make the suggested changes which were extremely helpful.

I found that I had a lot of changes and improvements to make to my digipak and poster. It was mainly an issue with images however after taking new photos and editing them into black and white, I managed to achieve a much better result. I also chose to remove the panoramic beach shot across the three inside panels since, as pointed out by my feedback, it was completely unrelated to our video. Instead, I used head-shots of our main star as this seemed more appropriate. For my poster, I knew there were quite a lot of improvements to be made. I firstly solved the image issue by using my new font cover image for my main poster image so that the audience can make the connections between all the products. My feedback commented on the fact that my album star ratings were over-sized so I reduced these so they didn't take too much focus of the page. After making all of the suggested changes, my final result looked much more professional.

Shannon Evaluation Question 4

Re-filming

Today we re-filmed our music video. We used Patrick as our male role as he was available and well-suited to the role we needed him to convey. We managed to get all the shots re-filmed that we had planned which now means we can get on with editing the new footage tomorrow.

Planning

We have decided to carry out our filming session on Monday 7th January.
We will need:
- Outfits for Kayleigh
-Makeup for Kayleigh
- Teddy bear that was used as a motif in our previous footage
-Ipod and speakers to play the music
-Shot list sheet so we know which shots we need to re-film.

Evaluation Presentation Ideas

When searching for ways that we could present our evaluation questions, I found a website called xtranormal. (http://www.xtranormal.com/) We feel that this would be a great way to show our feedback in evaluation question 3 as it would be much more interesting than just reading text off a page.

This week...

This week we are working on writing up our evaluations. We need to use different formats to present each question so we both plan to use the bamboo tablet for the technology question as this is a new piece of technology which we feel is really effective for presenting our ideas. For the other questions, we need to ensure we chose a format which will be interesting for others to view.

New Feedback

After recieving feedback on our second draft video, we have decided to refilm more of our shots. Below is a shot list of everything we plan to refilm. Our previous male role now has other commitments therefore we will be using Christian as his replacement.

Shannon - Evaluation Question 4 (Draft)

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

Final Cut Pro
- We used this to cut our clips to the right length and fit them with the lyrics in the song
(print screen of final cut pro software)
-The green bar along the bottom is the backing track which is our song and the clips above it are our footage. Final Cut Pro allowed us to freely move our clips to the part of the song we needed and from there, we were able to cut them down, re-time them or change the brightness.
- Some of our shots originally were too dark (print screen example of the window shot) however this software allowed us to match the colour to the lighter shots (print screen of the improved shot)
- It also allowed us to add a slow-motion effect to some of the instrumental shots and the end shot (tube chop example) which added more dramatic effect to the video.
- With the shots where the girl and boy are stood by the brick wall, we were able to add a stylised effect which faded the edges of the shot to make it seem more like a flash back. (show shot where this was used)
- On our final shot with the candles being blown out, Final Cut Pro allowed us to add a zoom which we hadn't originally included when filming. we wanted to zoom into the lit candle which represents hope in our video as without the zoom the end shot seemed bland and appeared to serve no purpose in sending a message.

Cameras
- FinePix S6500. We had to use this camera as a back-up due to the Canon HD camera we borrowed from school having a flat battery with a charger that did not fit the camera. Luckily I had a Finepix S6500 camera that we could use to film with however, despite the fact it is a very good camera, it is more for photography rather than filming therefore the quality is not up to the standard of the other footage we have from the Canon HD camera. For our draft video, we used a Sony camera which did not provide the high quality footage that we were able to get with the HD camera, however, the shots we filmed with this camera were the outdoor shots, all of which have been removed in the final version of our video.
(Show photos of cameras used)
We also used the FinePix S6500 camera to take the photos which we used in our digipaks and posters. We were able to use a black and white setting when taking some of the images; these ones turned out most promising therefore we edited them further later on.

Editing
- Photoshop. (show print screen of production of digipak/poster) I used photoshop to create my digipak and poster. This piece of software was useful for this task as it allowed me to work on layers; this was helpful as I could work on one layer at a time and move between layers if something needed altering.
-Picmonkey.com. We used this website for editing the photos for our digipaks, we had already used a black and white setting on the FinePix S6500 camera however the editing website allowed us to edit the images further and come out with more effective pictures that we were able to use.

Presenting / Evaluating
-Animoto. We used animoto to present our 25 word pitch at the start of this process. This allowed us to clearly present our ideas to the class in a simplistic format that looks effective.
- Slideshare, Scribd. We used these to upload our work from powerpoint and word onto our blogs
 as it is a quick and easy way to display our work online.
- Movie Maker. We used movie maker to create our animatic for our music video. It allowed us to use our drawings and put them all together to see what the final piece will look like. The program also allowed us to visualise how the shots will link together and we had too few/too many shots.
- Phones. We used our mobile phones to communicate and arrange when we could meet up and film. It is the easiest way for us to stay in contact with our main star.

- I will present this question by drawing up icons with the bamboo tablet and doing a voice over which explains when and why I used each peice of technology.

Shannon - Evaluation Question 3 (Draft)

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Our audience feedback has been extremely helpful when developing our products. From our 25 word pitch, all the way to our final video.

• Write feedback we received from our 25 word pitch
• Screen grab comments from our animatic
• Screen grab comments from our draft video
• Screen grab comments from draft ancillary products
• Show comments given on our final products
• Show comments given on final ancillary products

- Talk about how the feedback helped and what we learned from it

This feedback was useful as it allowed us to identify the weaker elements and change them in order to achieve a better result. I feel that our video has improved a lot from our first draft, this is thanks to the feedback we were given by the target audience.

Shannon - Evaluation Question 2 (Draft)

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary task?

• We have maintained continuity through all three products. The star from the video appears on both the digipak and the poster; this shows a clear link between the three. (uses images which show the star on all three products). Our focus on star image was important as we wanted her to take up the majority of the shots in the video; this allowed her to be recognised on our other products. This links to the country/pop genre and we are therefore following the conventions.
• We have kept the theme of love running through all three products. (screen grab 2/3 shots in the video which show the theme of love and put them against my digipak and poster). We have done this because we want to show a clear link between the products to the audience. The idea of love links to the storyline we were conveying in our narrative.
• The colour scheme used across our main product and ancillary task is very natural and simplistic. The setting used in the video uses soft colours and lighting (screen grab example of setting uses) as well as the main stars outfit. (Screen grab examples of her outfit). This colour scheme is then carried over into my ancillary task (show screen grabs of my ancillary products) where I used simplistic colours which linked effectively to the video. We wanted to convey a theme of innocence and vulnerability across all three products therefore we had to focus closely on how colours and lighting could be used to present our artist in that way.

Shannon - Evaluation question 1 (Draft)

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

Video

• Follows a narrative, girl/boy love story (uses conventions) -Tube chop scene of the flashback. Show 10 second clip of a Taylor Swift song where a boy appears in the narrative.
• Focus on the star (uses conventions) -tubechop about 10 seconds where it shows constant camera focus on the star. Then show tubechop of how Taylor swift is focused on in her video
• Uses a variety of shots (uses conventions) - printscreen examples of different shot distances used
• Used lots of close-ups of the star (uses conventions) - Printscreen 3/4 shots where we have done this.
• Colour schemes and costume represent character (uses) - printscreen of the different costumes used throughout
• Used motifs that appeared in digipak, e.g. teddy, rose (uses conventions) - printscreen of the teddy and rose
• Lip syncing (uses) - show 10 seconds of lip syncing, show a Taylor Swift video where she also uses lip syncing.
• Cut shots to the beat of the music (uses conventions) - Tube shop a 10-15 second section where we have done this. Then tube chop another video in our genre where the same technique is used.
• Used lyrics on screen (develops conventions) - tube chop the section where we did this. Our genre tends not to use this effect as it moves away from the illustrative form of the video however we wanted to add something that would make our video more original and develop the genreic conventions. There are two Taylor swift songs which use stop motions to display the lyrics however what we have done is much more basic.

Digipak

• Main star on the cover (uses conventions). - Show my album cover and compare it against Taylor Swift's/ Ellie Goulding's covers
• Close up / head shot used as cover image (uses conventions) - Compare against other albums that use head shots.
• Black and white image (develops conventions) - Show how our genre only really uses colour images on the cover.
• Legal information / barcode / record label (uses conventions) - Image showing other albums in our genre with legal information on the back

Poster

• Main image is same as digipak (uses conventions) - Give other examples (use an image) where the image is the same on the digipak and poster
• Album release date (uses conventions) - Show an image of another artist in the genre that displays the album release date on their poster
• Rating and Reviews (uses conventions) - Show an image of another artist on the genre that displays ratings and reviews on their poster.

Theorists

• We have used Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory by portraying our star as attractive to men and admirable to women. To do this, we brought youth to our star through her make-up which was basic and subtle, her costume which was girly and innocent, and through colour which was mainly natural and plain.
•  Todorov threory. Equilibrium (the boy and girl being together). Disruption (break up) New equilibrium as a result of the disruption (the girl having hope of being happy without him)

Final Video

Filming Session 5

Yesterday evening we carried out our final filming session. Unfortunately, the HD camera we borrowed from school did not work and the charger did not fit therefore we could not film in HD. Luckily, I had an alternative camera that we were able to use but the quality is very poor in comparison. As a result, we have a lot of out-of-focus shots. However, we did manage to re-film everything we intended to so we can edit these into our film in our lesson.

Editing

Today we continued to edit our film to ensure that all of our material was in sync and ready for the new shots to be fitted in next lesson. We wanted to make sure that all the shots we plan to keep are in time so that we can focus on the new footage when we have it.

Final Re-film

Our final re-filming session will take place Wednesday 28th November, again at my house. This will be our last chance to get the footage we want before Friday's deadline. We will  need to ensure we have the list of shots that we wrote out last week that we need to shoot.

Today...

In today's lesson, we finished editing our new footage into our video. After watching it through, there are still shots that we are not happy with and would like to change. Next week, we need to organise one last filming session before the deadline which will allow us to get the shots we want. The main issue seems to be the instrumental so we have looked at Kelly Clarkson's video for Since U Been Gone which has given us some inspiration.

Re-Filming

In today's lesson we also organised which of the scenes we still want to tweak and re-film. We found that with our new footage edited into the video, it merely highlighted the lower quality from other sessions, and so we have written up all the final scenes that must be improved slightly.