Evaluation: Question 4

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

Throughout the production of our media products, we used various types of technology to aid us in our efforts. The most important of these was the software on our computer, an iMac. The main software we used was: Final Cut Express for editing our raw footage into a credible music video, Photoshop for creating our ancillary tasks and Safari for researching music videos to help improve our knowledge of their conventions.

Safari
Perhaps the most important software we used during the research and planning stages, Safari allowed us to explore rival videos and their conventions. This was important because it allowed us to have an idea of what we we needed to put in our video to make it look professional - such as shots, camera angles, lighting effects and transitions.

Safari also allowed us to access this very blog, using the blogging website Blogger. This meant we could review each other's work and share ideas over the internet, meaning a lot of work could be done from home. When researching the conventions of videos we used the mass video website Youtube and when researching our audience we used the site UK Tribes which is basically a database for all the types of social groups in England.

Final Cut Express

After using a Sony DCR-HC62 to film our raw footage we had to import it into Final Cut Express in order to edit it into a good quality music video. This camera was of a medium quality, meaning that the highest quality footage wasn't really available to us but its mobility allowed us to have good camera movements and angles. The lack of quality was tackled using Final Cut's editing options. As shown in the Development of our Music Video post, Final Cut Express allowed us to create a professional looking video because of the quality of the program and the effects it allowed us to use. These included various types of transitions, colour correction and video stablilising. Look at the development of our video here

However, despite the brilliance of the technology I had at my fingertips when editing the video, it was a very time consuming process as the music (which was edited down to 5 minutes using Garageband) had to fit the lip syncing in the raw footage and on top of that we had to find the best footage out of hours of filming. Again, on top of that, we had to choose the right transitions to fit the cuts. Overall though, I believe that Final Cut Express was the perfect software to use to edit our video.

Garageband

There was minimal use of this software but it was important because the song needed to be no longer than 5 minutes long. This meant cutting 13 seconds off the end of the song and using the master volume function (above) to create a fade out affect where we wanted it.

Photoshop

The most important software used during the design stages of our ancillary tasks, Photoshop is an advanced image manipulation program. Having used the program last year to create their AS coursework, Tom and John were able to create brilliant ancillary work to fit alongside our music video. The tools provided by the software are top of the range which allowed them to create many effects such as overlays and glows.

On the Digipak, the magic wand tool was used to erase much of the background image surrounding the fireworks and this was further emphasised by adjusting the opacity to create a firework template. To colour the firwork, hue and saturation was used on another firework image and this was overlayed onto our template using the opacity settings. The image on the inside cover is the same one used on our magazine advert.

As seen on our advert, there is a basic image of our artist which has been manipulated to black and white using the desaturation and stamp tool. The mobility of text in photoshop allowed us to put the text wherever we wanted to create a unique look.

iPhone 4

With a '5-megapixel still camera, tap to focus still images and LED flash' the iPhone 4 was the perfect mobile camera to use for simple images of us developing our coursework - such as filming pictures and location shots.

Technology played a major part in the development of our products and without the technology listed above, the production of our project would have been impossible. Videos have been created requiring editing software such as Final Cut, Photoshop has been used to create all of our ancillary task elements and the internet has been vital in the research stages. This is also true with the presentation of our work as it is posted on this blog, which requires the internet and the Blogger website. Without the technology available to us, this project could not be complete.

Evaluation: Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Scene with picture of girl added

Fireworks overlay added to plain scenes

Car Park scene added

Remi reminiscing over a photograph of the girl

Feedback was extremely important for the production of this media project. This is because as a group we needed to keep in mind how our target audience would react to our final product. Our aim was for two screenings of our work, one rough cut and then the final cut. The point of the rough cut screening being to get feedback on how to improve and whether we had created a video worthy of the genre.

However, most of the feedback was to come from our teacher, who had the most knowledge of what would look best in the video, and our classmates who were going through the exact same situation so we know their feedback would be genuine. The reactions to our video were written down for the rough cut and then filmed for the final cut. The image above shows the initial feedback and how we dealt with it in any way we could.

Examples of our feedback

"I ACTUALLY LIKE IT EVEN THOUGH I HATE THE SONG"

"Love the fade to black"

"LOVE THE ENDING"

"Good use of scenes"

"FIRST PHONE SCENE IS AMAZING"

"I really like the fireworks overlay it gives the video a powerful start"

"I LIKE THE CAMERA TILT TO THE SKY WHEN HE PUTS HIS HOOD UP"

Evaluation: Question 2

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

In order to create an effective combination of our main product and our ancillary tasks, we needed a house style and this had to run through each product. As seen above, Eminem's 'Not Afraid' single cover is fairly identical to the advertisment and has a similar colour scheme to the album. The text on each piece is the same font and colour aswell. Therefore, we wanted to create something similar with our ancillary tasks, using the colours from our digipak album to use on our magazine advert.

As you can see above, there are certain images and colours that are used throughout each section of our ancillary tasks. The image of Remi, our actor, has been put on the advert and the inside left panel of the digipak. The same font, 'Roadway', is used for the digpak, CD and advert.

Also, black is used throughout as a means of creating a darker implications to the song meaning. The fireworks on the front have the colour drawn from them to use on the poster as a gradient and the same colour is used for the inside cover of the digipak.

A burn effect is also used on this inside cover and this is a recurring theme in the song.

The combination of our main and ancillary tasks, in my opinion, is very effective in creating our house style. This effect is created by a continuous use of the same font, colours and images throughout each product. Therefore, I believe that the combination of our products make it clear to the audience, and of course customers, that the products are linked.

Evaluation: Question 1

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

First of all, we needed to find out what the forms and conventions of music videos were in order to use them in our video. This meant researching typical videos for certain genres and analysing a currently popular music video to see which shots and aspects of mise-en-scéne were used throughout. When researching the conventions of music videos, a theorist by the name of Andrew Goodwin came up repeatedly. He had a theory that music videos had to include:

• A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
• A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
• Genre-related style and iconography present.
• Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist.
• There is a big emphasis on the notion of voyeurism - especially in relation to females.
• Intertextual references may be present (references to other media texts).

The information that can be extracted from these theories is that a storyline of a video is normally constructed from the relationship between the song and the visuals. These visuals will include close-ups of the artists in an attempt to promote them. Furthermore, the notion of voyeurism will be used in an attempt to make the video more attractive, more so for the male audience. Plus, genre related styles are extremely important because, for example, a rap-genre video would not be given much credit if set in a rock genre environment with rock genre mise-en-scéne.

As a group a decision needed to be made on how we would use Goodwin's theory to our advantage. First of all, we decided that we would not especially need intertextual references as these seemed to normally be reserved for videos with a comedic value - such as Geri Halliwell's 'It's Raining Men' and the references to the film Flashdance. Also, our interpretation of the song was that there was a depressing break up between two people, so we felt it unecessary to use voyeurism in our video as a needs of boosting attractiveness as the story was more about the lead artist's attempt at overcoming his split.

However, the rest of Goodwin's theory seemed to be useful in order for us to create a successful and professional video. Below I shall describe how we used each of the theories in our media product.

Relationship between the music, lyrics and visuals.

The narrative within our video paints a picture of a relationship turned sour to the point that the main artist (Drake) despises his lover, with this idea coming from the line 'I could tell this wasn't love, I just thought you'd fuck with me'. This also came from our idea that the 'Fireworks' in the title were perhaps a metaphor for their relationship. In order to create this effect, each of the verses include him either drowning his sorrows or destroying the photos of his lover.


In order to keep the audience's attention, we decided to use at least two locations for our video - especially for the performance part of the video during the verses. This is because it will reduce repetition and the audience would not get bored of the same location over and over again.


Genre-related style and iconography.

Our video needed to keep the conventions of a specific genre, the Rap genre (and arguably the R&B genre). This meant that our product needed to have the same variety of narratives, performances and camera shots found in videos in the same genre.

The most prominent feature of our video to show the genre is the artist's attire which had to give the artist an urban look.


Secondly, the video had to contain certain types of location in order to give the effect that the artist is in a rap environment e.g an alleyway or multi-storey car park. The deserted alleyway scenes definately complement the video's urban feel and more so the car park scenes.

Lighting was also extremely important because the lighter or darker a shot is influences the connotations of that shot. We used predominantly darkened shots to emphasise our artists anger and depression. Colour correction using Final Cut also allowed us to emphasise this light as mentioned in Evaluation: Question 4. Lighting effects were also advantageous for us as they allowed us to create an effect of fireworks as we were unable to create the effect we wanted with real fireworks. By using strobe lighting we could create the effect of fireworks flashing on our artist's face, which was an effect appreciated throughout our feedback.

Close-ups of the artist.

Close-ups, as mentioned in Goodwin's theory, are incorporated in many music videos - especially in this genre. The use of the close-up has the purpose of allowing the audience to relate to the audience and to implant the artists image into their head, thus promoting them and making them recognisable. Also, through seeing the artist's facial expressions you can identify their emotions and this makes the narrative much stronger. An example of this can be found in 'Not Afraid' by Eminem.


Shots and Transitions

The transitions (movements between cuts) used throughout our video also conform to the conventions of a typical rap music video. We used two types of dissolves, cross dissolves and dip-to-colour dissolves. The cross dissolves were used for changes in location whereas the dip-to-colour dissolves were used for small movements in time.


Examples of this can be found in many music videos such as Dead and Gone by T.I

Ancillary Tasks

Digipak

The digipak created by Tom and John follows the exact conventions of a rap genre, four-panel digipak. As found in our research there are two types of digipak - simple with bold text and abstract. As a group we decided it would be best for bold and simplistic by incorporating a firework design onto a dark background. This would make the digipak more recognisable in the shop. By adding the tracklist, barcode, parental advisory sticker and the required copyright information.

This digipak was influenced by the digipaks in our research, with large text displaying the name of the artist (or artists) and the name of the song.

Magazine Advertisement

Our advert is hard to compare to other magazine adverts as all are so different and it was hard to find any inspiration during our research. However, this allowed us to create a completely unique design. In order to keep our house style, we kept it simple and used the oranges from the digipak on the stripes on the advert.

The conventions have been followed because there is a rating on the advert to influence possible customers to buy the CD and there are places that the customer can buy it on there too, such as iTunes, AmazonMP3 and HMV.

Editing the Video

Stage 1 - Importing the Footage

When our filming was complete, I opened Final Cut Express and created a new project. This opened a blank screen like below.

I then uploaded the footage to Final Cut and it was placed into the browser, from which you would choose the part of filming you wish to cut down (e.g. Remi filming first part would be about 10 minutes long but would be cut down to find the part we wanted).

Stage 2 - Uploading the audio

After editing our song on garageband, it was saved as an AIFF file (the only format accepted on Final Cut). This was then imported to Final Cut into the browser and then put into the timeline.

This was important as the audio was what the footage would be timed/synced against.

Stage 3 - Viva Logo and Flashbar

After finding the VIVA logo and the flashbar that we liked, I added them to the timeline so that they would be shown over the video. This would create the look of the music channel VIVA. The flashbar would be added for the first 4 seconds (entering with a dissolve and then exiting the same way). The VIVA logo on the other hand would run throughout the whole of the video, so it was stretched to cover the whole length of the audio.

Step 4 - Creating the Video Using the Footage

First of all, I selected the footage I wanted to use in a certain part of the song (in this case the beginning) and dragged it into the viewer. I then dragged it into the timeline so I could time the lip synching against the song.

After placing the footage into the timeline, I selected the razor blade tool to cut part of the footage I wanted at this point in the song away from the rest of the footage. I then dragged it to the point in the song I wanted as shown in the next image.

This is what it looked like after making the first cut of the project.

This was what the video eventually looked like after all of the cuts were done.

After we had all watched the video, we decided that cross-dissolves would be better transitions than cuts. I selected cross-dissolves in the effects tab and then dragged them over the all of the cuts to make them into cross dissolves.

Step 5 - Professional Effects

Colour Corrector

The main effect I used to give our video a more professional look was colour correction. This alters the raw footage to be slightly coloured and any impurities in the original footage should either disappear completely or be barely visible.

I select the footage I want to alter (which was all of it) and go into effects->video filters->colour correction->colour corrector.

When entering the colour corrector, the two dials shown in the picture appear on a new tab in the viewer. You move the centre circle to the colour you want your video to be. We chose a bronze colour to give a similar effect to I Aint Thru by Keisha Cole

This is what the footage looked like after colour correction. It looks more professional, like it has been shot in a studio rather than a dingy car park.

Slow Motion Sections

For the parts of the video that are in slow motion (choruses and the end sequence) I had to change the speed settings for the raw footage. To do this I right clicked the footage I wanted to change and clicked 'Speed...'. The box shown in the pictures below is shown which allows you to alter the speed to how you want it (100% being the original speed).