JCutts- Question 2

How effective is the combination of your media and ancillary texts?

• When constructing our music video , we also had to produce a digipack and advertisement, for the album of our chosen track, in our case; The Script - Science And Faith. This is to be seen as a branding exercise more than anything. The advertisement must sell the band as a product, and therefore must comply with the genre of an Indie Rock back or if it doesn't, there must be a deliberate reason why it hasn't.
• In order to create Band image and brand our artist through the album and advertisement we had to ensure that there was some link between each of our individual adverts so that our final idea could be compiled from features of them all. We chose that the use of the graffitied alien would be a big selling point on our digipack and correspondingly we chose to use that in our adverts. I then changed my away from the alien for my advert and chose to put a screen shot of the band instead. I felt this would work better in the style of how our music video was put together. As our music video used a lot of meat shots selling the song through the band and lead singer, if i used a similar effect on the advert this would show a strong brand image.

• Above is a copy of the advertisement I made. I chose to use this image as I thought it was a strong image of the band. I also chose to drain the colour from the surrounding background. I felt this gave a feel that they were more 'alone' and different. This is something that present in our song , and throughout the album , the fact that the problem is between only the people involved and that a decision has to be made. This often gives a feeling of loneliness and that you may seem very much alone. Both band members seem to be thinking with with facial expressions showing deeper thought.

• The drain of colour also helps with the leading line. Your eye is instantly drawn to the colour in the advert, following down to the name of the album and band name. This is done in a way so that you associate the Album and Band to branded in the same category as the Band members as one. It then leads you to quotes from a radio 1 DJ 'Scott Mills' and the Indie Rock Magazine 'Q' this also suggests stereotypically what kind of audience it is looking to appeal to .

• The rule of thirds in this case is somewhat broken due to the fact it is anchored and structured around the linear features of the wall and building. This helps also with the fact if you follow the lines of the wall or steps it leads you to the Band members again and this means the leading line does exactly what I intended it to do , create a brand image which is not only associated with the Album but seen as one brand.

• I feel when put into a half page of a magazine like this one was intended to do it will catch the eyes of any readers, not only for the fact that it shows the band in colour where as the background is in black and white, the lead singer is wearing a bright white jumper anchoring the image in the centre of the image. This conveys dominance , a stereotypical feature of a lead singer in an Indie rock band , and also in a relationship, which is predominately what the song and album is about.
  

Jcutts - Question 1

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

The title of the band's album we chose to promote was called 'Science and Faith' this vague name allows the band to go into issues such as relationships, emotions, and other things through song. Our particular song we chose to make a music video to called 'walk away' is about a relationship which shows a male character who know he is bad for the female character, however she cant bring herself to leave him , and a vicious circle begins.

Conforming to Conventions;

• In terms of convention of the band 'The Script' are we looked into previous video's they had released . They conformed to most Indie Rock type styles, this included plenty of performance shots but with some sort of narrative running through it . However we were very indiscive whether to go ahead with the amount of performance shots as other videos did. This was due to the fact our equipment was obviously a lot less superior to ones available to professional musicians. On top of that none of us played an instrument . However in the end we chose to go ahead with the performance shots, we recorded several times to ensure we had covered every angle we wanted and also had enough in case any part was out of time, after all if this wasn't convincing it would ruin our video. Fortunately the footage we had was good enough for most to believe we were actually playing the instruments .
  

• Of course, when looking at forms and conventions, we had to look into Dyer's paradox's . His first being that the star must appear to be ordinary yet extraordinary at the same time . This meant clothing for the lead singer and band member must be fairly fashionable, yet at the same time the audience must be able to compare themselves to him and therefore compare the song and lyrics to a situation they may be in.

• This image here shows a shot of the lead singer just after he has been seen walking through the streets, just like any other person, he was not over dressed, and could well have been the person watching the video from an audience perspective. However in this shot, the lighting and facial expression shows a deeper meaning, conveying that the lead singer has something to say and it extraordinary in terms of the band. However his facial expression also suggests meaning and that he could have been in this situation , and that what he is singing about, is in fact true, or of a past experience.
• The second of Dyer's paradox's is that the artist must be both Present and absent. We conveyed this by lots of early performance shots, and meat shots of the lead singer, this meant you associated his voice with that face, and branded them as one.

• This early establishing shot means that the audience can quite clearly see the main voice ( the lead singer ) is most definitely present. However there are certain shots in which we can hear the artists voice and therefore tell it is him who is singing , but can see a different couple , in which the lyrics have a strong link to. This could be seen as being both present, and absent.
  

• The evident link between the lyrics and video is on that is obvious in terms of that the lead singer is talking about the characters included, however the clear reason and problem certainly creates a narrative fuzz. This slight vagueness, allows not only for people watching to remain engaged as they try and figure out the plot further, but also will allow any watching to put themselves in the position of either the character or lead singer, this first person mode of address is enhanced with plenty of meat shots and the lead singer looking into the camera.
• In order to convey the problem in what is clearly a relationship between the two characters we had to initiate a clear contrast between a memory that appeared to be happy, and those that showed emotion, for the worse. For the majority of our ''happy shots'' we used an effect which showed a a high contrast in the colour red. The colour has stereotypically got connotation of love as in a heart, which showed the relationship and when put together with a shot with plenty of movement, proved to work well. However equally red also has connotations with anger, and frustrations, we felt this was a clever way to convey both emotions in one, and leave it up to interpretation of the audience to decide what emotion was going through the characters heads at that specific time.

• On the flip side, when we wanted to show a clear time of when the characters seemed upset or feeling sorry for themself we using a grainier wash , with little bright colours, we felt this best described and showed connotations of a broken couple or relationship.
  

• This shows little colour and only one side of the characters face. She is looking away from the camera suggesting she is deep in thought, which when placed in with the lyrics, we can only assume is about the relationship .
  

• The lyrics of the song 'walk away' suggest a male telling a female to 'walk away' from him as he is bad for her. Yet she cannot. This suggest that the male is in control of the relationship and that the women cannot see past her feelings for him, this conforms to the stereotype that men and predominately superior in relationships , in todays patriotic society.

• Here shows a shot of the male character walking away from the girl, yet she chases after him. The fact that this is such a common problem in todays society which is shown on TV drama's films, and even in real day to day life, means it's social currency is increased . People can talk about the video , comparing it to things they have personally seen, watched or even experienced

.Goodwin's Framework;

Goodwins critical framework is something we considered upon constructing our music video, we used a strong link towards the lyrics and video. However despite the link between the lyrics and video, we avoided a ''story telling'' type approach , we wanted to leave a lot down to interpretation.

At this point the lead singer sings; '' Fallen in love in the worst way'' it then cuts to a POV shot of the female character laughing and clearly happy. However the amplification the colour red could suggest a deeper meaning of a problem she is not showing. And how her obsession with the male character is eventually her downfall. This complies with the stereotype that women are often the obsessive ones in relationships.

Jcutts - Question 3

How did the audience feedback inform your concept development?

In order to plan our shoots we used our audience research to decide what would be best . Using survey monkey we were able to gather our research back easily and then make decisions in correlation to the responses.

• Here shows that the people who answered suggested that two to four different locations would be most preferred followed by five or more. This was as expected as we intended on using many different locations but with a similar style to keep to a relatively clear narrative which the audience also indicated they wanted. However doing this we had to enable we kept some narrative fuzz.
• We asked the question what do they think the song is about , to give us an idea of what the audience would expect the forms and conventions to be of it , as you would do in real life when a song is released before the video.
• 'Oh this song is extremely sad and happy. I would personally class it as powerful. It is a moving piece and really sets off ones emotions. Good choice.'
• This was the general idea we got , a lot of people where not sure of the song but gathered it was a relationship that had ups and downs. We used this information and thought that if we left our music video open ended it would give the same confusion that the song gave and not make anything to obvious. This also would allow the audience the ability to put themselves in the position with the band or characters showing a first person mode of address, as if these words and video is meant for a particular person.

• What the lead singer and band should wear was something that we strongly considered before shoots. We had to consider Dyer's paradox's in the sense of a star must be extraordinary and ordinary . This meant we wanted the star to look stylish and in with the genre, but also ordinary looking enough for people to be able to feel like they have some comparison to the lead singer/ band. We decided to dress the lead singer in skinny jeans a white top and a leather jacket in the urban locations and in the band shots, jeans again with a tight Grey top .
• This also had to be taken into consideration when thinking about what the characters would be wearing . We decided on a ordinary look again with the female character wearing leggings a leather jacket and a top. As for the male we gave him a Jacket and Jeans. We felt dressing as any other person would show how relevant the song can be to almost anyone .

George - Evidence of call sheets/ risk asessments

Here is evidence of our call sheets and risk assessments whilst going out on a shoot with school equipment:

James - Evaluation Question 3

How did the audience feedback inform your concept development?

Our audience feedback suggested that we should have a narrative running through our video. Below is an example of the feedback that we received from asking the question "Do you prefer music videos that have a clear story within them or ones that have no relevance to the lyrics of the song?"

• I think it is always lovely to see music videos where you can see a relationship between the visuals and the lyrics. Otherwise it makes no sense and i get so confused. There is no point in having visuals that do not even fit with the song you are attempting to accompany. Overall, i think that the lyrics should mostly link with the visuals. This would be extremely effective and create a good quality piece. 

Before this feedback we were pretty sure that we wanted to have a narrative in the video and this feedback only strengthened our belief, highlighting its importance.

We also wanted to see where the target audience thought our video should be filmed, 53% of the audience said that they thought it should be filmed in the city. They also said that it would be better if there was several different locations within the city. We took this advice on board and when we were in London filming and found different locations for both the narrative and the performance parts of the video

we also asked the target audience "In performance shots how do you think the lead singer should be dressed?" and we got some very helpful responses such as:

• The lead singer should be dressed appropriately. I think that a smart look really adds a sense of sophistication, not only to the artist, but to the piece as a whole. It targets a well accomplished audience and creates a quality piece. However, you could make women look more appealing, yet still elegant. Possibly a knee length dress, obviously with black tights and a high neck line. She should not be an object of men's desires.
• Skinny jeans, leather jacket, white t-shirt with design on it underneath.

This influenced us heavily and as you can see in the video we dressed the lead singer in a very modern outfit and took the advice of one member of the audience and didn't make the women overly sexual.

JCutts - Q4

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

We shot out footage on a Sanyo Xacti High Definition Dual Camera. These new HD cameras that had been purchased by the school, made filming and editing more enjoyable as well as giving us a great , smooth music video. However they were slightly different to cameras we had all previosuly used , so we went on a recci to Brighton not only to get shot idea's but also to all familise ourselves with the new HD camera.

We also had to look into what frames per second (FPS) we wanted to set. We decided at some point in our video we would use slow motion which meant we would need to change the settings at some point. We originally used a 60FPS setting, this proved problematic and caused premiere to constantly crash. This resulted in us having an extended deadline due to constant technical problems. Despite this causing frustration amongst the group, we managed to get round it ... eventually.

When editing our slow motion clips we realised that because there would have to a cut in the size of image , it would leave a black curtain each side of the image. To cover this up we inserted a layer over the top of the lead singer.

Blogger;

We posted all of our posts onto blogger, and used this to post idea's and general conversations including lesson write ups . This allowed us to comment on each others idea's and speak from the convenience of our own homes. It also allowed teachers to look at our progress as well as other members to help out with suggestions and provide advice to how to get round problems we all had come across.

Here you can see evidence of another class member commenting on one of our posts. This was considered when gathering our audience research .

• Another great feature blogger allowed us to do was to post videos from youtube that we wanted to help show a point found in another music video. This is also allowed us to show evidence of how we gathered research and our development of ideas .
  

Here is evidence of where George has posted a video and told us the points we should consider. Further down showed a comment in which we have reflected our idea's on the post. Blogger also allowed us to respond to a video with another video .

Survey Monkey;

• The majority of our audience research was done on 'Survey Monkey' , this allowed us to make an online survey . This not only was more accessible as we did not need to print off copy's and give out it could be done through social networks such as facebook, simply by posting the link. Furthermore the data could be put into graphs so it was clear to us what the audience has told us on each question.

• This shows our survey on the data collection tab, this enabled us to see the breakdown of each answer clearly.

Adobe Premier Elements;

• We used this programme to edit our footage in , with the experience of using the previous programme last year we had a basic knowledge of how to use it. The newer programme had a slightly different layout and a few more effects but other than that were only a matter of time to get to used to .
• We discussed what effect we were going to include in our music video in order to show off what we were capable of , without it looking out of place in our music video. One of out more successful effect was the '' photo shot'' This include us taking a photo and dropping it , as it hit the ground we pinned a piece of footage on premier and allowed it to play, so it gave the effect that the photo was actually in fact moving.
  

Another effect we used was for the final shot which was shot in slow motion, in order for us to cover up for the fact the initial image is infact smaller. This is due to the setting change on the camera in order to shoot in slow motion . We had to layer our lead singer over the top , not only did this help to make it more smooth, it ended with the lead singers face, which gives good , obvious band image, branding the artist and band with the music.