Ryan's Evaluation

Ryan Breeze P1-04 Evaluation

For our A2 coursework we had to make a music video and Digi-pack. As a group we decided to choose ‘Feist - I Feel It All’.

We looked into challenging conventions by making our music video like an audition. We decided to do this because we wanted to give a visually enhanced interpretation of an audition. We liked this idea because we thought the lyrics would link well with the visuals such as ‘I feel it all, I feel it all’ whilst paint is being thrown. Also we thought this idea would be completely original therefore making it interesting for first time viewers and humorous for repeated views.

The way in which we created this atmosphere of an audition isn’t conventional because we used a lot of hand held camera shots. We did this because it gives a sentimental amateur feel to the video; plus it makes you feel a part of the actual video, especially when the characters look into the camera. However we did also use a lot of over the shoulder shots with a tripod to retain the idea of an audition. This was to give the feeling of voyeurism because you are observing them from a far. We also had a lot of different camera angles such as pans and close ups so that we could cut between them to keep it interesting and moving. We used close-ups to so that the viewer can identify the artist like in Goodwin’s points. However Feist didn’t have any motifs like other artists such as Michael Jackson and his glove so we just used arrange over facial close-ups that highlight different parts of their face. Also whilst we were filming each other singing I filmed quite a lot of random footage like the stage lighting and the floor. I made the camera movement dynamic deliberately to continue with this theme of voyeurism and being in the video. I think this works really well especially the cuts between the stage lighting because this enhances the narrative of an audition in a quick amusing way.

In addition to the cuts of the stage lighting, we did that by cutting it to the melody of the song. This is very conventional of indie artists as Feist did it herself in her actual video because it helps keep the rhythm of the song. We used a lot of editing techniques to keep the atmosphere of the song reflected through the footage. This is clearly visible with the zoom out of Ram which fits perfectly with that section, as the song ascends to a climactic part where it says ‘I love you more’. However we put ironic piece of footage in there where James gets hit with a tier and pulls a little grin. This again works really well as it gives the sensation of a sub narrative between Ram and James because after this part he puts foam on her head. This creates a heart warming and sentimental feel to the video which would encourage our audience to watch this video again.

The mise-en-scene played a major part in enhancing this heart warming but yet oddly serial video through the use of our costumes. We made our auditionees wear all white and we made the backdrop white as well to capture that pure and innocents of the characters. This also created a feeling vulnerability where the audience can connect with the auditionees. Also the whole idea of paint being thrown at them is very metaphoric of the real pressures people have to face in an audition.

Our final product challenges conventions of Digi-packs because the photos and fonts are all interlinked with the video and advert. We did this because we wanted new fans as well as existing fans of Feist to be able to make the connection visually very quickly by seeing the DVD cover and instantly recognising it from the video. This is the same with the advert as we used the same font with the advert as we did with the Digi-pack to continue the idea of a series. The photos we chose were all from the same point in the video, where Ram has paint thrown on her because we thought this was the most iconic moment in the video. Another unconventional idea we had was to make the front cover and the back cover of the DVD loop round so when you turn the DVD cover round you would see Ram covered in paint which would be humorous for the consumer.

The feedback we received from the rest of the class was very mixed as some people missed the metaphoric narrative and but yet others really enjoyed it. However we took most of the feedback on board like ‘it needs more shot variation’ and ‘the digi-pack is too dark’. We thought it was very helpful as we missed some of these faults like the duration of some shots were too long and it became boring. So we re-shot some of our footage with more close-ups as it became apparent from our feedback that it is important to sell the artist. Plus we changed our digi-pack with different photos and fonts to make a bright and happy DVD cover which would interlink with the video. Some positive feedback we had which was really good was how arty they felt it was. This was another key aim for us as a lot of similar bands of this genre make their videos quite arty. Elbow are an example of this as they do this through there editing by repeating clips in ‘grounds for divorce’.

To develop and enhance our product we used a large range of new media products. The most common one we used was Blogger. Blogger was very useful with sharing ideas and illustrating them without the need for us to be in the same room. This helped us the most to develop our ideas as it enabled us to embed pictures or video clips from You Tube. We used You Tube a lot as well because we wanted to research about Feist and other similar artists to give us inspiration and to help us make a video that would suit our target market. Another new media technology we used was MySpace; we used this to contact Feist however we never received a reply. We also used a lot of computer application like Photoshop and Final Cut to make our products. However we had a great deal of difficulty with Final Cut because one of cameras wasn’t compatible with it so we had to keep rendering each clip when we moved it, this was very time consuming and led to difficulty with lip syncing.

We faced quite a few difficulties whilst making our video as we had problems with the different levels of quality from footage so we had to apply colour correctors in Final Cut to enhance them. Also we had problems during reshooting because it was hard recreating the same location as we weren’t able to book our previous location again. However the footage we reshot still worked really well and if we hadn’t of done it our video wouldn’t have been as good.

Overall I feel I have learnt a lot about music videos and how they are used to advertise the band through visual interpretations of the artist’s beliefs; plus how music videos are aimed at different audiences. I have also gained a lot experience with working in team and working off each other’s strengths. I have improved my Final Cut skills and I now feel comfortable creating a project individually. I’m really happy with the outcome of our final product especially the Digi-pack I think it looks very professionally done and it suits the video really well. I’m also very pleased with the video but the only thing I would change is some of the footage near the end where it loses the narrative with a pan of a chair. I felt this was too confusing and people wouldn’t understand its purpose. Also the reshoot footage of Ram wasn’t as good as the rest because she had to reapply the paint and the lip sync was a little out. But overall I think the product is very good and it would appeal to a large audience of diverse age range because of its sentimental and humorous properties. Plus I thought the visuals were really effective in capturing the melody and narrative of the song in an original and unusual way especially with the handheld camera work creating the idea of voyeurism and watching them as a member of the audience.

Commentary

James Heath Evaluation

For our music video we chose the song I Feel It All by Feist. We thought this song suited an indie audience so we felt a video with a low budget feel to it would be the right way to go. We went through the process of brainstorming ideas looking for something that would stick to certain conventions but also challenge them. We eventually settled on the idea of an audition, with different people singing the song whilst various things happened around them. We thought this challenged convention as it did not feature the artist and, unlike most music videos, would all take place in one location.

We wanted to make our music video feel very realistic and make it look like it was footage of a real audition compiled together to the song. We tried several techniques to make it look real and make sure people were aware they were watching a music video but being sucked into it at the same time.

We were very lucky to be able to book a local venue to shoot our video. We had access to spotlights and other kinds of stage equipment for our music video. The setup for our music video was very basic with just two sheets hanging and on the floor. We also used three different cameras so we could shoot multiple angles at the same time. This also helped us achieve the look of a fly-on-the-wall documentary style as other cameras can be seen in the background of certain shots. This is different to convention as most videos try to suck you into a fictional world of the song whereas we were trying to suck the viewer in to the real world of making our video.

Whereas our video challenged convention in quite a few ways our ancillary texts pretty much stuck to them. When researching the different genres we found some conventions that were true for certain types of music. Most Rap artists would have a very plain cover with either a picture of themselves or some sort of symbol they are associated with. Rock tend to go for a picture of the venue or the poster for the tour the live show was taken from and pop normally goes with the album cover. Indie artists were found to have some sort of artwork created either by a member of the group or someone close to them. We decided not to try anything fancy with our digipack cover as we thought it might be too much trying to market an indie artist in this way as it would be a bit too out different. We found that with real artists they tended to try something different like that once they had established a pretty solid fan base.

We did challenge convention in some ways though. We found when looking at real digipacks they very rarely linked directly to the music video and tended to link to the album cover or single. We used a particular image from our video for both the magazine advert and DVD cover.

It was an image of Ram, the girl from our video, covered in paint. We thought this was a great image to use as it was the climactic moment of our video and was also a really striking image. The white background as well as Ram’s white clothing really made the colours of the paint stand out on the page. We used a cropped version of the image for the magazine advert featuring just Ram. For our DVD cover we tried something a little more interesting using the whole image. The image has me throwing shredded paper at Ram covered in paint. We took this image and stretched it round from the front cover to the back cover. This worked really well as the front cover had me throwing the paper and the back cover had the image of Ram covered in paint.

The digipack we used as our final image wasn’t the first draft we had. We had originally done another one which we decided to improve on as it didn’t feature any of the visual links from the video or magazine advert or video and looked quite dark whereas the video was going for a light and nostalgic feel.

Our digipack and magazine advert received really positive feedback from our classmates as well as our teachers. This was a real boost for us as we had worked really hard on them to make them look really good and genuine. For our DVD cover we added some quotes from reviews of the artist we found on the internet. We also looked at how blurbs for digipacks were worded and tried to make ours similar. We also included the logos of the record label and distributor as well as an age certificate to make it look really genuine. With the magazine advert Sam did a really good job and editing the text to make it look like a real magazine advert by playing with font to emphasise certain words. A little blurb was included at the bottom of the magazine ad. The name of the artist is in bold to help people identify as well as the name of one our special feature ideas “Feist on Festivals”. He also included an ear to let people know where they could buy the DVD.

Our music video received mostly positive feedback but there was some negative feedback. Our classmates like the audition idea and thought we had filmed it really well. They also liked the mise-en-scene of the video and thought it looked very arty, which was great as this was something were trying to achieve.

The negative feedback was for things we were aware of but weren’t able to resolve in time for the deadline. One of the problems we had was the lip syncing was little out in some places. This was due to Ram filming some more shots without access to the song so her timing was a little off. We did manage to edit most of it to make it look good but we didn’t have time to finish it all as this footage was added at the last minute.

We were also told that the pace of the video slowed down in the middle. Again, this was something that we were aware of and we made efforts to fix. After our rough cut we realised that this section of the video needed a lot of work so went out and shot some more footage for the beginning and middle of the video. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get the same venue but we were able to find somewhere in college that looked similar so this worked out really well. In the final cut it is still a little slow but it’s a lot better than our rough cut.

We also had some problems with the footage from my camera. The video we had shot on my camera uploaded as a file that final cut didn’t recognise. This meant that we had to convert the footage using some software Ryan had which took some time. It also caused further problems once we got it into final cut. Every time we moved one of the clips, even a fraction of a second, we had to re-render it which cost us quite some time.

When it came to the software we were using we were quite advantaged as a group. Ram and Myself both study film studies so we have extra experience using Final Cut Express and Ryan and Ram both take photography so had more experience of using Photoshop. This made our editing quite a bit easier and we were able to try out new things we hadn’t done before. One thing we learned to do which we didn’t know about was the colour corrector tool on Final Cut. The school camera copied onto film whereas the other two cameras we used were digital so the saturation was a little different. We managed to fix it and now it isn’t noticeable in our final video.

We used other types of media to help with our research and planning. We used YouTube to look at existing videos and get some ideas of the type of things that are out there. We used Wikipedia to learn a bit more about the artist as well as similar artists we were researching, such as Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. On top of that we also used MySpace to try and contact the artist directly and tell her what we were doing, unfortunately we never heard back from her.

We kept track of all our progress using a blog which was really helpful as all our information was in one place which we could access from home as well as share easily with other. We had learned from previous experience that not planning enough could lead to problems later so we set out to plan as much as we could to make sure we were prepared. This was also good as sometimes we were all working on different things and this was a good way for us to share ideas. For example, Sam did lots of work on the magazine ad whilst myself, Ryan and Ram were editing. This allowed him to share his creative development easily with us. We worked well as a team like this, with all of us doing individual work and then bringing it all together at the end.

Overall I think we did a really good job and I am really pleased with the outcome. Throughout the process of making the music video I have learnt a few new tools on final cut express. I have also learnt that it always helps to plan as much as you can. This was a mistake I made last year so this year I fully prepared and it helped a lot. I also learnt that sometimes it’s best just to go with your instincts and that’s what we did for a lot of the shoot and ended up with some really great footage. In the future I would try to have a bit more time to shoot it and make sure we’ve got all the shots we need. I would also do multiple takes of everything as it always helps to have a choice for different shots.

Sam's Evaluation

The song we chose to create a product for was I Feel It All, by the folk pop singer songwriter Feist. She is well known for her ability to bring up feelings of nostalgia and happiness in her listeners, and this is something we aimed to achieve in our video.
This is the main convention of this genre, and we could identify this by watching previous videos by Feist, and other similar artists. This was one particular convention we didn’t want to challenge, but it was definitely something we wanted to include and develop in our video.
Our first initial idea was a lot more typical to the genre, strongly based around a linear narrative. The idea was to have a group of friends trekking through fields and forests etc, carrying instruments and other odd pieces of furniture, to then eventually set up at their destination and play the final chorus. This is similar to the video we ended up with, as they both start off slow, and build up to a big climax. This seemed the best way to get people excited, to want to keep watching the video to see what happens, and to thoroughly enjoy the end. Through this, audiences would see it, and show their friends; “You’ll never guess how this ends!” or “You’ll love the end of this video!”

Personally, my main inspiration for the video that we finished with was the video for “War of the Worlds” by Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. In this video, the lead walks into a warehouse, where he sits and watches an installation being set up, while singing the lyrics. As the song gets faster, he gets more aggressive with his singing, and as the music hits its crescendo, the instalment, now fully set up, unleashes a barrage of lightning and paint.
This fit so well with the idea of a build up and climax, and sealed the deal for me in choosing what kind of video to make.
The audition idea came from a brainstorming session. I had put forward the idea that we each stand in front of a white sheet, while singing the song. When, for example, we sang the line “wings are wide”, a pair of makeshift cardboard wings would be hoisted up behind us, or feathers be thrown onto us. From this came the idea that we would try to make it as hard as possible for the person performing to do so, and the idea branched off of that. Throughout the whole though process, I was adamant that we keep it so we see the studio set up, maybe shots of clearing up afterwards. It was my hope that these shots would give the video its individuality, and make it seem more light-hearted and fun.
The initial shoot went well. We booked out the studio space at a venue in Cambridge, where I work, called the Junction. We set up some spotlights and hung a large white sheet from the ceiling (filming all the while), and placed our cameras on tripods around the room. We each then took it in turns to sing the song, while the others threw all manner of things at, on and over us, trying to make it as hard as possible.
We did two shoots for the first two members; one static, one closer up, and one final take for the climactic shot. We couldn’t do more than one shot for this, as paint would get on everything and we didn’t have spare costumes or sheets, so it was vital we got it right. One camera was knocked over halfway through this shot, but the particular member singing at this point took it upon herself to shoot some close ups later on, to fill any spaces out.
I think we achieved all our aims in the final product, though some of our initial ideas had evolved and changed over the research and development process, I don’t think any of these changes were bad.

Our auxiliary products followed the same processes as our video, as we though about them side by the side. Our original idea was twinned with a similar nature based auxiliary projects, photos of forests and sunny days etc.
As our ideas progressed, so did how we imagined our auxiliary products would look. Our final product, using the visual motif of one of our characters covered in paint, struggling to sing, managed to group together the feelings of nostalgia and light heartedness together, by using dark spaces together with the bright colours of the paints and fonts used.
The use of the visual motif was extremely useful to us, as it gave a recognisable link between all of our media products. Audience members would be able to see it as a series, a collectable must-have to an existing fan, a good place to start for a new one.
The motif we used was a very carefully chosen one. We wanted to capture the whole feel of the video, but also a good representation of the artist.
I think we manage both these things, as the image definitely gives a good idea of how the video is going to be.
I had made an earlier draft idea for the digipack cover; at the same time we made the magazine ad. This first attempt was moodier and more atmospheric (I was trying to capture what I had felt Feist’s previous products give off), but at the same time it lost the lighthearted fun the magazine ad had. So as a group we decided to mix both of these together, and we ended up with our final design.
I did have some doubts about the motif initially, I thought that it gave away our climactic seen, but the positives outweighed the negatives, and I decided that this particular image would attract more attention, and maybe the curiosity, of potential buyers.

We received feedback on numerous accounts. We originally had to pitch our idea, and we received feedback on that, which was really positive. We then had feedback on our rough-cut, which did have some minor problems. The main one was the lack of close ups, and variation in the quality of the shots;
“You could possibly use more close ups to cut the time of certain shots.”
“I do feel there are long sections of the video that are in long shot and these are not as satisfactory as the close ups and parts where things are happening”
The close up shots were a problem, so we went out and shot more footage, on the college site. Originally, we set out to film more performance shots, but being in a different location, even with the right equipment the lighting still wasn’t right. So instead, we filmed some “pre-audition” footage, to enhance the narrative.
There was also a problem with shot quality. Not that the footage we captured was bad, but we used three different cameras, so each had a different colouration. In our final cut, we ironed this problem out by altering the colour contrast and brightness.
There were also some issues with lip syncing, a lot of our shots were quite long, so it was difficult to see what being said, therefore difficult to match. With some extra time and effort, we able to sort these problems out too.
The fact we got feedback on so many occasions was tremendously helpful, we could see our peers as a sample of our target audience, and pitch our ideas to them. We acted on every piece of feedback we received, and our video was greatly improved because of this.
We also received feedback on our auxiliary products. This was the main reason our first draft digipack cover was re-done. We did initially have doubts about it, but with the help of peer feedback we were able to confirm and act on these, changing the font and making or cover more like that of the magazine ad.

Technology was an enormous help, throughout all of the production process. We used Adobe PhotoShop from the start, and on numerous occasions, preparing a mood board for our pitch, putting forward design ideas and editing and developing our magazine ad and digipack ideas. There was a brief period when we were planning on including animation in our video, but due to time constraints and the amount of time that would’ve taken, it was unfeasible. But PhotoShop would have definitely have been a major part in that process.
Using the Blogger website helped us share our ideas, and keep track on how far we were through production. It was also extremely helpful as it made it incredibly easy to give and receive peer and teacher feedback. We could look at other videos and comment and even get inspired by them, and have the same done to ours. The fact we could sign in and work from home was also extremely helpful. If I had got an idea at home, that I could have forgotten by the next time we had a lesson, I could log onto Blogger and write it down right at that moment.
We used YouTube to research and watch Feist’s previous work and videos, to get ideas from them, and try to use these in our own video. We used it to research similar artists too, like Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, and the video I talked about earlier. Without YouTube, we might never have gotten that idea in the first place.
With Final Cut, along with the many, many upsides to the program, there was one quite large technical hitch for our group. One out of three of our cameras footage wasn’t recognised by the program and was unusable, and at one point it seemed like we’d have to re-shoot. This wasn’t something we particularly wanted to do, especially seeing as it was a majority of our video, and being unable to book out the Junction again, we couldn’t have that footage in a different location. We were able, after three days of editing as best we could without that vital footage, to convert these files so we could use them in the program. That being the case, we still had to render these files every time we moved our edited them in anyway, which meant watching a two to fifteen minute loading bar, depending on how big the change to the footage was, every few minutes, which was a massive hindrance while editing. We persevered, and we managed to get our final cut in by the deadline.

In conclusion, I am extremely pleased with how this project went, and even though we hit barriers, some small and some high, we managed to get what I think is a pretty decent final set of media products completed, with the help of peer feedback, new media technologies and teamwork.

Evaluation questions

These are the questions we have to answer for our media evaluation. We have to make notes for them, and we will have a timed essay to write on tuesday to answer these questions.

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

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancilliary texts?

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

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

Magazine Ad Final

Final DVD Cover

DVD pack analysis

This is the cover for Michael Jackson's number ones DVD. The cover is going for the simple & minimalist look. The photo of Michael Jackson is well known, as it was on one of his hit selling albums. The back is also very simple with no exclamations on special features etc.

Digipak and Magazine ad re-draft

We are currently working on new ideas for our magazine ad and digipak. We are going to work on making the digipak a little more like the magazine ad. We will be including more colour rather than the dark colours in the current one. We are also going to work on a half page magazine ad just to expand what we have. We will have a few to choose from so we can enter our best one. They should be up soon.

Final Cut

Here is a picture of our project in final cut. It shows our complex editing with lots of layers of footage.

Digipack & magazine ad

Tom has given us some feedback on our ancillary products.

Magazine advert: Strong, but need to do some more ads, so we have more choice.
Also, trying out an advert in landscape as well as portrait, and how it would be situated (considering fold of magazine etc)

Digipack: Font too big and too Gothic, doesn't fit the theme and feel of our music video. Text is positioned over a strong image, maybe move things around a bit. Unbalanced and muddled.

So, we'll re-do our digipack and do a few more magazine adverts. This will give us more range, and we'll try and keep to the style of our video.

Final Music Video

Video Due

Our music video is due in today. We decided to do some last minute shots so we had some closeups of Ram's face covered in paint for the end of the video. She did this over the weekend at home and brought the footage in with her today so we have to do some last minute adjustments to the video to get the clips in. We knew we were going to be doing this in our last lesson so we made sure we were happy with the rest of the video so that we didn't have to worry about that and could focus on making sure we were happy with the ending.

The final video should be up on the blog in about an hour and fifteen minutes.

Magazine Advert and DVD Cover

Below you can see the Magazine advert and DVD cover we have created for our music video.

We aimed to make the magazine advert bright and colourful so it would stand out. For this we decided to use a screen shot of us throwing paint at ram. This was good as the background was plain white with the bright colours of the paint over the top of it. We played with the font in the quote at the bottom to make some words bigger. This is something we have seen in adverts in magazines to make certain words stand out and it was something we wanted to use in our magazine advert to make it seem really genuine.

The DVD cover has quite a plain feel to it, with two parallel images on the back and front of the case. We included some quotes and a special features box. We also decided to include a universal logo and Feist's music label's logo on the DVD cover, again to give it more of a genuine feel. We didn't include a BBFC rating as we found in research that the majority of digipacks didn't have these.

Final Marketing Package

Rough Cut

Group 5 Feedback

the video was rather eccentric but the was not enough shot variation and the one setting didn't provide much interest. the directors view approach to the video is interesting but i dont think it really works to well with this artist or genre of song. there where a few close ups in the video but it could benefit from a few more so in the respect the video does represent the artist but improvements could be made, maybe by including extreme close ups of the singers face.
the video feel quite dark but the song is upbeat and feels happy so maybe the group could edit the brightness in the shots.
the video starts well by editing different shots in time to the piano.
the video could include landscape shot to provide variation but this may not be the image the group want to portray.

Peer Feedback

The lyrics had no connection to the visuals, and I don't think the music video itself fit the music. The video had a very playful and immature feel to it but the music sounded more mature than the video made out. The video had no clear narrative, nor had much performance. The footage itself was well shot and there was clearly a lot of effort put into filming. Also the beginning, where the lights come on in time with the music was a good effect.

peer feedback

music and visuals
-cut on the beat
-at the end the shot duration is to long
-also the lip syncing was slightly off.
-get repetative need something new toward middle.

Peer Feedback Group 03

Genre characteristics - The music genre fits the video very well, there is an artistic feel to the piece that gives a calm relaxing feel to accompany the song. It feels appropriate and fitting to the melody of the song.
Overall the strong points of the video are how the artistic feel of the video fits the song also with alot of good angles and shots. You could possibly use more close ups to cut the time of certain shots.

Rough Cut Feedback - TAW

The style an design of your video is very consistent and shows a lot of control. The images in the video also match the mood of the designs for the digi pack and advert. I do feel there are long sections of the video that are in long shot and these are not as satisfactory as the close ups and parts where things are happening. I think you might want to shoot the three performers in close up in front of a white sheet and play around with the lighting using a shot lamp?

Are you going to continue with your animation ideas?

Ideas For DVD Pack + CD inlay

Footage Problems

Sam and myself decided to bring our video cameras with us so we could shoot multiple angles. This worked very well at the time and we had lots of excellent footage. The footage from the school and sam's camera's uploaded fine, however the footage from my camera did not upload as the file format was not supported by final cut. A media technician said he should be able to sort it but he hasn't been here for the past two days so we aren't sure whether or not he has done it and if he has there is no way for us to get the footage at the moment. This is a problem as we had lots of footage that we wanted to use and at the moment we have lots of footage but from about 3 different angles with no close-ups. Ryan has some converting software at home so he is going to see if he can convert it tonight. Hopefully we will have all the footage tomorrow.

Digipack Info

Artist
Song title

Including;
Commentary
New single
On set diary
How we managed it all in just 4 hours
Out takes / deleted scenes
Interviews
Remix
Edit it yourself feature

digipack idea

not sure about this yet, just an initial idea

Upload

So today we are uploading our footage and are going to be looking through it all to see what is good and what we can get rid of. We had three cameras at the shoot, sometimes all filming at the same time. This means that we have lots of footage, I think at least an hour, which will mean it will take a long time to go through.

Ryan has just finished the animatic which he will be uploading soon.

Idea for DVD cover

This is a photo i took whilst shooting the footage and i have edited it a little in photo shop to enhance the contrast a bit more. --->

Shooting

On Sunday, we filmed our music video.

Sam managed to book the junction, so we could shoot there.

The filming went very well, and we got plenty of footage. We were slightly un-organised to begin with, but once we had everything, and we'd set everything up, we were ok. We filmed from 11-3:30.

Our final idea, was to have an audition process, where one of the "auditionees" stands infront of a blank white sheet, and sings the song; but whilst this's happening, they'd be pelted with random things, like shredded paper, confetti, icing sugar, glitter, balloons, sellotape, and paint. We also ran objects through the shots, like a trolley or a rubber tyre. We went for a very simplistic look, and purposely left the props like fans and chairs in the shots. We wanted it to look like an actual audition. We also used 3 camera's in total, to get a wide range of angles, of the same thing.

Whilst we were there, we thought it an opportune time to take photographs for our digipack. Whilst doing our storyboard we wanted to fill up small balloons with glitter, or shaving cream, and for them to be on the sheet behind the auditionee and to be popped at the beat. This didnt work very well, as the balloons were small, they werent easy to tie. (Below, trying to fill the balloons, which was unsuccessfull)

Overall, the whole shoot went very well, and once we look at the footage we got, we can decide if we'll need to film again. :)

Feedback

It seems as if you're all working individually, against one another, not so much as a team and posting random posts to make up numbers. On the other hand you've done a lot of research to influence your ideas which has worked well.

Feedback

Loads of content on your blog which is really good. You have a lot of other music video examples to show and give more explanation of what you mean, which is good as its visual and not boring.

Inspiration

Eagle Vs. Shark, is a very mellow, love story. The characters are unconventional and awkward, i really like the look to this film (images taken from the trailer at youtube.com, and google images)
It's very low budget, and simple.

Inspiration

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIDeUssDFE0

The above link is for the Cure- Close to me.

I really like this video, as its very close up, and is in one area the whole time. I think if we did our video in one confined space, it'll make it look more effective, and mean we could shoot at any time, and in one location, so we could film for as long as we wanted.
We could also improve it a lot in editing, and still add animation.



This is the video for Paramore- ignorance. This video is also very confined, and dark, i like how there's a single spotlight, which is cleverly used to highlight each band member.
i like the closeness of this video too, and the use of light, we could do a video like this, and use large lamps, to brighten the area, without making it look grungy or dark, because our artist is more indie/folk.

Conflict

It seems there is a bit of conflict in the group towards the final idea. I am a bit unsure as to what is going on as I missed the pitch and when I came back the idea had changed.

This is something we will definitely need to sort out before we continue.

We will need to look at all of the different ideas and decide which one would be best for us to do. I think at the moment our idea is a bit too conventional and there won't really be anything special about it. I think we need to come up with an idea that will stand out and make our video different from anything anyone has seen before and I don't feel that will be accomplished with the current idea.

We'll let you know once we've come up with a definite idea and we will work hard to get that storyboarded. Ultimately we need to make sure we have something everyone is happy with otherwise there won't be 100% effort put in and we won't be performing to our full potential.

Animatic

This is our Animatic for our music video i have only managed to do half of it as the song is quite long and it became too time consuming. However from the Animatic you can get an idea of what we are trying to achieve.

Video Analysis

This is Night by Benga & Coki Coki

I really like this video, as the music and visuals works really well. It has a very heay bassline, which is amplified with the octopus's movements, and lights. The flow of the song, is quite slow, which is again presented through the octopus.

Auteur research

P1 - Auteur Presentation - Anton Corbijn

View more presentations from Media Studies.

Ideas Ideas Ideas Ideas Ideas

Another idea:
To have that game young children play, when you lift a huge sheet into the air, and someone has to run to the other side before it falls down.

But, it'd be slightly different. The sheet wouldn't fall down; and the whole video would be a huge tracking shot to the right, following our lead singer. The sheet would be white, or any bright colour, and it'd keep changing throughout the whole thing. Along the way she'd do or see things relating to the lyrics. We wouldn't see anything from the outside, just her, and whatever she comes across, as if she's in her own world.

Things she'd come across:

• When the lyrics say "the wings are wide, the wings are wide," wings could sprout from behind her.
• When the lyrics say "wild card inside, wild card inside" we could do a close up of her spreading a pack of cards (as if to do a magic trick) and then throw them up in the air above her
• When the lyrics say "I'll be the one who'll break my heart," we could have an animated heart on her, then break it in half.
• When the lyrics say "I love you more, i love you more" she could be holding a flower, and picking the petals off, (like when young children go: "he loves me, he loves me not")
• When the lyrics say "But now i know i wanna win the war" we could animate small explosions around her
• When the lyrics say "No one likes to take a test" we could animate numbers, and equations around her head, and she bats them away, and they turn to smoke
• When the lyrics say "put your weight against the door" she could open an animated door, and walk through it.
• When the lyrics say "kick drum on the basement floor" she could kick a drum across the floor.
• When the lyrics say "stranded in a fog of words" she could have a cloud around and above her head, with words coming out of them, then she could bat them away, clearing the air.
• When the lyrics say "loved him like a winter bird" we could animate birds above her head, and one of them to rest on her finger
• When the lyrics say "on my head the water pours" we could animate a bucket of water falling on her. Or pour a real bucket of water over her head.
• When the lyrics say "fly away, fly away to what you want to make" we could have an animated hot air balloon in the semi-distance with someone waving out of it.
• Then, the same thing when the lyrics say "the wings are wide the wings are wide" and "wild card inside, wild card inside" and "I'll be the one to break my heart"
• When the lyrics say " the truth lied, and lies divide" we could animate, the whole shot being torn in half. Then to two pieces of "paper" would get blown away in the wind.

I think this idea would maybe be a lot easier to execute, as we could do it anywhere, and wouldn't need many people. We would also need a lot of small props, which would relate to the lyrics. But we'd have to film soon, as a lot of it would has animation in it. This would mean there'd be a lot of class, and outside work, rather than more filming. The video would have a very clean, almost sterile look to it, which i think would work well with the artist, as she's quite feminine.

Final Idea

Final idea is that we will make a journey video of the band with them walking through a field and getting to a camping location. We are thinking about filming next Thursday but first Ryan, Sam and James are going to look round at locations to check whether they are good or not for filming.


We will post feedback on the location hunt later, with photos!

Also idea for editing would be to add film grain and sepia effect to create an old style to the footage, to continue with the genre of the music.

Teacher Feedback on Blog

Your blog looks incredible - the amount of content and the detail of the content is fantastic. Well done.
The only recommendations I would make for improving your blog further is to embed the auteur presentations we did in the first couple of weeks, these can be found on slideshare.net if you type P1-Auteur into the search box.
My only other tip would be to remember that your blog is an academic piece of work. It is fine to reflect the personality of the group but do remember it is read by examiners and is assessed.
Excellent work so far, keep going.

like i said,

here's a VERY rough version of our magazine ad, in monoprint.

Ideas Ideas Ideas Ideas Ideas

I've had another idea, that we could film at dusk/ night or very early morning.
We could bring paper lanterns & little tea lights.
I think this'd look good if we were to do the scene of a picnic/tea party.
Or to see the couple holding hands and walking through a field/woods.

Contacting Feist

After e-mailing Feist via her myspace page, we still haven't got a reply as of today.
Maybe she's just really busy?

I've tried to find an official e-mail address, but no luck.
Will keep trying though!

We also did our pitch today.
It went very well, even if we were a bit over prepared (not that its a bad thing)
The likelihood of us getting our chosen track is pretty high, as i dont think anyone else has actually pitched for it.

So, overall yay us :)

However from the feedback from the rest of the class we found we need to do more work on the narrative because we are not sure on whether we are doing a love story or journey story.

sams idea no. 4

Costumes/Props

Costumes

• Dress up clothes - pretty dresses, superheroes
• Dungarees
• Tweed suit
• Glasses
• Bright colours

Props

• Cardboard rocket
• picnic stuff
• tricycle
• giant mirror
• acoustic guitar
• drum
• toys
• teddy bears
• old car
  

These are just some initial ideas we came up with when thinking about costumes/props. We will expand on this a lot more once we have come up with a finite idea for what we are doing.

Locations

Some possible locations and where to find them:

Bottisham

• Woods
• Big Open Fields
• Abandoned Barn
• James, Ryan and Sam's houses
• Play area
  

Lode

• Abandoned train station
• Windmill and surrounding area
  

Fulbourn

• Nature Reserve

St. Ives

• Ram's dad's farm
• Big fields
• Ram's house
  

sams idea no. 3

i had an idea for the digipack cover. we could try and make it a monoprint, like this "black cat" piece.

i'll make a rough version later on, just wanted to see what everyone else thought.

sams idea no. 2

imagine this, in a field, less funeral like clothing, less people, more skipping and running and laughing, and a cardboard rocket being built, and you get the picture.

i love the visual style of this video, the slight blurriness and the faded colours. i know i will be heavily influenced by this during the editing process.

Digipack ideas

We started thinking about the types of things you would want to see on the digipack of a singer/songwriter.

As Feist is just one person we thought that they would be the primary focus for someone who would buy the digipack. Based on this we thought having interviews with her would be a fantastic idea. As there might be too much focus on her we thought that having interviews with the director/producers of the video would be a good idea as this may provide more insight into the inspiration for the artist as well as the inspiration the artist can generate.

We started thinking about the genre of music and the type of person who would be likely to buy the digipack. The music is quite a laid-back style known as "New Folk". We thought about the type of extras someone like this would be interested in watching. We would include:

• On set diary
• On tour diary
• Feist's festival survival guide
• Interview with Fesit
• Interview with director/producers
• Badges/stickers
• Video for "Mushaboom"
• Poster
• Cardboard case (recycled)
• CD-Rom capabilities - desktops, screensavers etc.
  

idea and prop list

i really like the style of this photo, the seting and the colours.
just an idea.

PROP LIST

A drum
An acoustic guitar?
Hats
Feathers
Sticks
Cardboard
Tin Foil
Wooden utensils?
Marker pens
Stones
Flowers
Pots and pans?
Camping bags
Drumsticks
Dice
Telescope!

honestly

i prefer my moon my man

Spike Jonze

I decided to have look into Spike Jonze's body of work. I saw the trailer for Where The Wild Things Are this morning. I liked the story about the child escaping the real world, in which his mother pays him no attention, into a world of his imagination. As the idea of imagination was something we had for our music video I thought I would have a look at some of his videos. I had a look at 'Y Control' by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, 'Get Back' by Ludacris and 'Weapon of Choice' by Fat Boy Slim.

Annoyingly all three videos have embedding disabled so I have provided the links.

Y Control - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3zPbBMbnjI

This video features children acting as an anarchist mob of some kind. The idea behind this video is that children learn from copying so it is possible for children to end up bad as they are very impressionable. We have an interest in using children in our video, however I think we would be using them in quite a different way. The message is quite similar though, as we would be looking at how everything was nice and innocent when you were a child and you had no worries in the world. This goes with the lyrics of the song as they are about the worries when in love.

Get Back - Ludacris
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJeZe50ut5A

This video is a completely different genre to the previous but Jonze still manages to bring his own unique visual style to it. This video doesn't have any children but it does have certain visuals to relate to what's going on. In the video Ludacris gets into a fight with someone and his muscles on his arms are blown to a funny proportion. This could be something we can consider for our video; taking something from reality and changing it in some way to make it humourous in the way it looks.

Weapon of Choice - Fat Boy Slim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMZwZiU0kKs

This video doens't really have any special effects in the way of distortion of image. It is really a simple concept; Christopher Walken dancing around an empty hotel and ends up flying. I really liked this as it was just one man having a good time to music. This was one of our ideas for our music video so finding something like this showed how a simple context like that can look really good.

Ideas - Frightened Rabbit

I looked at some more music videos that i thought were quite interesting.



I really like the animation in this video and i think we can achieve this with some live footage as well. Also the sketchy kind of feel to it will fit really well in our music video and it will make it more enjoyable for our target audience.



Another interesting video by the same band is 'Bright Pink Bookmark' I think this is an excellent video because it has a very interesting concept and you can watch it multiple times without getting bored.
Looking into Goodwins points, this video has some really good features; such as the visual images of things growing fits nicely with the calm relaxed music, making the video very hypnotic. This is key for this video because it has no lyrics so it is important to keep the viewer interested in watching so that they remember it. This kind of video is very typical of this genre so it makes the visual advertising for the band more difficult but yet it helps them greatly because the people who like this genre generally like this kind of video.

Both of these videos are of a similar genre to 'I feel it all' so looking at these videos will help gage what the target audience likes and what competition there is out there.

Text Experiments

I had a bit of free time this evening and decided to play around with the text a little bit.

I took influence from the fonts we had looked at and decided to just try writing the name of the song in a similar font. I did three different designs. One with a shaded 3D effect and no colour. The second had the same shaded 3D effect and added colour. The third had a full black 3D effect with the same colour as the second. The examples are below.

































































Ryan - I saw James' idea and I wanted to see what it would look like animated so I made a simple GIF file.




Ryan's Gif looks really cool. Although it has just dawned on me that I got the name of the song wrong. Oh well, it still looks good.

An idea from James

This evening I watched Live And Let Die, which in my mind is one of the best James Bond films. This then got me thinking about some of the iconic figures of cinema that all young boys and girls which they could be. I thought that this may be an interesting idea to consider when it came to our video.

As one of our main ideas was a young couple having a good time I thought that the idea of dressing up as some of these characters and have the characters acting like them. James Bond was a particular inspiration in this as every young boy wants to be him and he is a figure many girls find attractive.

This got me thinking about other similar characters. I thought about Indiana Jones and Han Solo as well. These characters are both instantly recognisable and also have female counterparts eg. Marion and Princess Leia repsectively.

This is just an idea that I am yet to discuss with my group but I just wanted to put it on the blog so the idea was there if it was to develop.

Font Mood Board

Collectively, we all decided that we wanted a sketchy style font to be used in our video. This sketch style will be repeated in the animation that'll be added to our video.

For example: when the lyrics "the wings are wide" are sung, animated wings will be edited around the subject. (This is not final, just an idea)

This will be the same for the fonts.

More inspiration

This is a really cool ad i saw by Mini, who drew out their ad on an etch a sketch.

I think the idea is really simple and works well with Mini, who're an established brand, and have an iconic car.

To pull something like this off would be really good, but also quite difficult.
We could maybe do something like this for our magazine advert. An advert of the DVD cover.


Also, another etch a sketch inspiration, i found this video by Maldroid- Rock N Roll
The video is of the band, and shows them each drawing on an etch a sketch. The drawings are animations of them performing etc. I think it really works for this band, as they almost have a "nerdy" or quirky tinge to their music & style.

Concept art

I have done some concept art based on our initial ideas.

This picture would be used for the magazine advert and hopefully be a screenshot from the actual video once we have added some animation to the clips. It could also be the front cover of the DVD as this would create a similarity throughout all of our products.

Mood Board

This is our mood board, it is a collection of our ideas for the music video. We want to make some of the video animated, like the video Sam posted before.

Whoo! Alright! Yeah! Uhuh!

Watch!

you should watch this. it has the perfect animation style, incorporated into the video.

Initial Ideas

Following on from the influences of Juno, Nick and Norah and Away We Go I think that an interesting idea to do would be something about a young couple in love.


One of my ideas is the the couple doing fun stuff and just generally having a good time together. This would take place in some sort of location they could go together.

Some possible ideas for location

• The Park
• The Seaside
• A Field
• A Farm
• Town

Some possible ideas for what they could be doing

• Having a picnic
• Building a rocket
• Making a sandcastle
• Playing on swings etc.
• Playing in the sea
• Running really fast down a hill
• Making mudcakes
• Cartwheels
• Riding bikes
• Making a cake

We definitely like the idea of a couple. We could take influence from Juno and Nick and Norah and focus on a teenage couple. An alternative to this that would break convention in to focus on a young couple aged around 8-10. This would be quite a nice idea as it would focus on the innocence of love.

NOTE. I think maybe it should be people our age, acting young, living old memories. Sam

Another idea Ram had, at the end. Would be to have a couple (boy & girl) get really close, either about to kiss, or kiss (nothing major, don't get too excited :) and then have the whole shot tear in half. Then the torn paper could either get caught in the wind, or dropped on the floor. If they're dropped on the floor, i think it'd look good if two different people pick up a piece each and walk away.

BIG IDEA FLASH

THEY COULD BE GOING TO THE FOREST TO BUILD A ROCKET.

i'm startin to feel it all

this is the kind of video style that would suit this song.
at the moment i have the idea of a group of friends, or just a boy or girl, walking to certain place, in a forest or wood, carrying something, a drum kit or a chest of drawers, something rustic. the video would have a very neutral color, almost sepia, and would seem like an old movie.

More influences

Following on from Noah and the Whale I also felt some influences from films.

I really like independent films and thought that some of these would offere great influences when it came to our video.

In particular I like Juno, Nick and Norah's Infinite Play-list and Away We Go.




Juno is a quirky story about a teenage couple who get pregnant. The film follows Juno's story as she tries to find a couple to adopt the baby when it's born. The film features an interesting soundtrack as well.














Nick and Norah's Infinite Play-list is, again, a quirky film about a young boy and girl who fall in love over one crazy night in New York. This film also had an interesting soundtrack.


















Away We Go is a little different to Juno and Nick and Norah as it isn't about teenagers. It focuses on a 30-something couple who are looking for the perfect place to raise their child.


















What I like about all these films is the low-budget feel about them. It makes the locations and costumes a lot more interesting as they actually have to be filmed in real locations rather than building a set in a studio. The costumes tend to be a lot more interesting as well as they just use cheap clothes which makes for some interesting outfits and costumes for the characters.

I also think that something like this will be a lot easier to recreate as we are working on no budget and will just have to use stuff we can find ourselves.

Friendly Fires Band Poster

Ryan and Sam copied out the Friendly Fires band poster. We looked into the different ways in which the poster is used to advertise the band.

Influences

My idea when I heard the song was some sort of independent homemade feel.

A music video that immediately came to mind was the video for 5 Years Time by Noah and the Whale.



I like the way this video looks and how it shows the band as well as some sort of story. I also like the visual representation of the lyrics as part of the performance.