We started editting the video as soon as we finished the filming in the field to get the opening scene successfully synced in time with the lip singing and the lyrics. We got the first 30 seconds done within 2 hours of filming it. I feel this was a very good start and shows the initative we planned to show for our final production. We then filming the rest of the of the music video within a week with many different shots on different locations, such as the singer's house and the town centre.
We decided to get the editting done as quickly as we could after we did the filming as we could get it all done propperly, we made this decision because of past projects when we didnt make the deadline we wanted to make sure we finished within a week before it so we could look to improve it in any way possible.
We used the iMacs 'iMovie' feature to edit our music video, we have used these numerous times before in smaller projects for media so we knew how to use them. We had a look at the different transitions and different effects we could apply to our video and then looked at the clips to decide whereabouts we could apply what effects and what would look the best and fit in the most.
The biggest problem we came across when editting was that we couldn't time the video with the sound to make it look like our actor was singing, this problem has been a major problem in the past with other videos but didn't arise too much and was easily solved with trial and error problem solving by deleting small bits of film until it linked in correctly. Another problem we had was that sometimes at the end of a line the film wasnt long enough to link onto the next line, so we used the effects avaliable on iMovie to either make the clip slower at one point or to have a transition that made it longer.
The effects we used included black and white, slow motion, fast motion, reverse film and many different transitions. We used a very wide variety of effects at our disposal to make our video as professional as possible. We used black and white film to represent the difference between the present and the past, also to seperate the performance clips and the narative clips.
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Evaluation Plan
In todays lesson we were given the questions that we have to answer in our evaluation presentation, these are;
- In what ways does your media product use, develope or challenge forms and conventions of real media product?
- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
- What did you learn from audience feedback?
- How did you use new media tecnologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We were also advised to look on http://www.slideshare.net/ to have a look at other people's media evaluation presentations as well as looking at http://petes100blog.blogspot.com/ for good examples of other people's media blogs so we knew exactly what we had to do.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
CD Cover Production
I started with looking through the filming of the singer in the field for some ideas of how to have a good close up image, I had decided that I wanted to have a person on the front cover, ideally the singer but not essential, so I viewed all the filming that we had got and there were many close up stills that I could use, I then decided that I didn't want to have a close up of a face on the cover of my CD, this was because I don't think it is very relevant to the genre of music for our music video. Our song (Best of You) has an instrumental ending and we decided that in our video we would have the singer turning he's back on the microphone, and when I went over the film i thought that this was a very good view of both the singer and the microphone being left in the screen so I print screened the image and started editting on Photoshop when I got home on 16 March to take out the background and leave the image. I then took the image I had without a background and put it on a white background with a thin blue border, this is how the cover looks currently.
I then decided that I wanted the picture to be sligghtly different, so I had a look at the different effects that I could apply to the picture, I then had a choice between the 2 that i liked the most, which were 'Grain' and 'Sprayed Strokes'. They are both fairly similar effects but I decided that the sprayed strokes gave a more professional look to the picture.
I then decided that I wanted the picture to be sligghtly different, so I had a look at the different effects that I could apply to the picture, I then had a choice between the 2 that i liked the most, which were 'Grain' and 'Sprayed Strokes'. They are both fairly similar effects but I decided that the sprayed strokes gave a more professional look to the picture.
Sunday, 14 March 2010
CD Magazine Advert Research
I have continued my research into CD album covers and adverts so that when i come round to making mine i know what makes a good advert/cover, I also want to make mine as realistic as possible so i want to know what a stereotypical cover/advert looks like.
I have had a look through a few magazines that i've bought over the couple of months, the pictures below are of 4 different adverts for 4 different artist's albums. Each CD cover is pictured next to the magazine advert for that album.
This album has the same house style with the album cover and the advert, the colours are all the same, along with the font of the writing and the basic idea of keeping the artwork very simple and bold. I feel that this works to a certain extent as the advert is very bold and gets to the point very quickly with as little on the advert as possible without losing any details.
This album cover and advert use the same artwork for both cover and advert although the advert is a 2 page spread and has been edited to give a different effect, the picture takes up a very large amount of the cover and advert and is the focus of attention. I feel this works slightly better than the Vampire Weekend cover/advert as it is more colourful and eye-catching.
This Advert uses a similar technique, the advert and cover use the same picture, same font, same writing and similar layout, the only main difference is the writing at the bottom of the page with details about the album release and singles. The artwork features a close up of the singer which is a popular feature of many albums.
These cover/adverts are almost identical, the only difference is the writing at the bottom of the page about the release date, i feel that the colours work very well and the black background makes everything else stand out more, just like The Courteeners album.
After looking at these examples, I have decided I will not make my advert until I have finished my album cover because for every advert I see, the album cover has a huge influence on the style. I will try to make my advert in a similar style to the album cover to give them a professional look.
I have had a look through a few magazines that i've bought over the couple of months, the pictures below are of 4 different adverts for 4 different artist's albums. Each CD cover is pictured next to the magazine advert for that album.
This album has the same house style with the album cover and the advert, the colours are all the same, along with the font of the writing and the basic idea of keeping the artwork very simple and bold. I feel that this works to a certain extent as the advert is very bold and gets to the point very quickly with as little on the advert as possible without losing any details.
This album cover and advert use the same artwork for both cover and advert although the advert is a 2 page spread and has been edited to give a different effect, the picture takes up a very large amount of the cover and advert and is the focus of attention. I feel this works slightly better than the Vampire Weekend cover/advert as it is more colourful and eye-catching.
This Advert uses a similar technique, the advert and cover use the same picture, same font, same writing and similar layout, the only main difference is the writing at the bottom of the page with details about the album release and singles. The artwork features a close up of the singer which is a popular feature of many albums.
These cover/adverts are almost identical, the only difference is the writing at the bottom of the page about the release date, i feel that the colours work very well and the black background makes everything else stand out more, just like The Courteeners album.
After looking at these examples, I have decided I will not make my advert until I have finished my album cover because for every advert I see, the album cover has a huge influence on the style. I will try to make my advert in a similar style to the album cover to give them a professional look.
Friday, 12 March 2010
Kung fu Fighting
This is our video for 'Kung Fu Fighting' by Micheal Douglas
You can view it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QJXAwVTxAE
Thursday, 11 March 2010
CD Cover Research
As part of my research for the CD cover i have to produce I looked up a number of different album covers on the website http://www.play.com/ i soon realised how many different possibilities there are when choosing what to have as an album cover such as a close up of and artist, a logo, artwork, a location, an abstract image, an animation and the artist in all kinds of different situations and places as you could possibly think of.
All of the above albums are covers that i believe to be very effective in different ways, they all all very different, starting with the Foo Fighters Greatest Hits cover (2nd left) the album cover consists of nothing but the logo, the band name, album name and a metal background, I feel that this makes it incredibly bold especially with the colour contrast between red and the colour of the metal, the logo jumps out of the picture and grabs you're attention.
The Gorillaz (1st left) and Paolo Nutini (2nd right) are fairly similar as they are both animations but of different kinds, the Gorillaz album is a 3D CAD (Computer Aided Design) image and the Paolo Nutini album is a 2D design. The Gorillaz album is very relevant to the band, as the artists don't star in any videos or album covers and have animated characters that make up the band in such situations, however the Paolo Nutini album cover much more random which shows that you never know what to expect from an album cover. The Dizzee Rascal album (3rd left) also includes animation in the way that the title of the album is actually the main feature and the picture of the artist is a small one in the corner, the choice of colours and font makes the album look very friendly and almost childish which is something very different from a lot of album covers out. The Them Crooked Vultures (4th right) is a computer generated image of a man with a vultures head, this is clearly relevant to the bands name and the colours work very well to make the cover stand out.
The Arctic Monkeys (4th left) and the Florence and The Machine (1st right) both feature close ups of people, however the Florence album is a close up of the artist, which is a popular feature on many albums, but the Arctic Monkeys album is not a close up of any of the artists in the band so there is not very much relevance to the band if you are just looking at the album cover.
The Hard-Fi (3rd right) album cover is something very different to a lot of stereotypical covers, it has no picture of the band, or anything relevant to the band, just a bold yellow background with writing saying "No Cover Art" along with the band and album name. I feel that the colours make the album cover what it is and the simplicity makes its so unique.
An album cover should reflect the genre of music, this is because although it is highly likely that a person thinking of buying an album will know the music, maybe because they've herd some previews on iTunes or have heard a single or two from the album but there is a likelihood of people looking at the album and not knowing what kind of music it is, because of this it is almost an unwritten law that the album cover should represent the style of music. Some stereotypical views of album covers with regards to this are R'n'B music will have a close up of the artist (usually preferred by record companies) under some kind of lighting because pop music very often uses the artists good looks to sell records especially with female artists due to the way society works (this happens in all genres but predominantly pop/R'n'B). This is shown below with a selection of album covers from some of the top selling pop music artists of recent times.
Dance music will usually have a dark background and/or include bright colours to reflect the sort of atmosphere in clubs. The genre of music very often has a model on the front of the cover, mainly because 'sex sells', also because there is usually much less singing in the songs, this means having the artist on the cover is not very important because they are not so associated with the music as Beyonce is with her songs.
The research I've done into this has been helped with the work that i have recently done on Andrew Goodwin's 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' (1992) where he says that each genre of music has certain styles, there's demand from record companies to put the artists face on the cover, references to voyeurism particularly in females and that there can be inter textual references.
All of the above albums are covers that i believe to be very effective in different ways, they all all very different, starting with the Foo Fighters Greatest Hits cover (2nd left) the album cover consists of nothing but the logo, the band name, album name and a metal background, I feel that this makes it incredibly bold especially with the colour contrast between red and the colour of the metal, the logo jumps out of the picture and grabs you're attention.
The Gorillaz (1st left) and Paolo Nutini (2nd right) are fairly similar as they are both animations but of different kinds, the Gorillaz album is a 3D CAD (Computer Aided Design) image and the Paolo Nutini album is a 2D design. The Gorillaz album is very relevant to the band, as the artists don't star in any videos or album covers and have animated characters that make up the band in such situations, however the Paolo Nutini album cover much more random which shows that you never know what to expect from an album cover. The Dizzee Rascal album (3rd left) also includes animation in the way that the title of the album is actually the main feature and the picture of the artist is a small one in the corner, the choice of colours and font makes the album look very friendly and almost childish which is something very different from a lot of album covers out. The Them Crooked Vultures (4th right) is a computer generated image of a man with a vultures head, this is clearly relevant to the bands name and the colours work very well to make the cover stand out.
The Arctic Monkeys (4th left) and the Florence and The Machine (1st right) both feature close ups of people, however the Florence album is a close up of the artist, which is a popular feature on many albums, but the Arctic Monkeys album is not a close up of any of the artists in the band so there is not very much relevance to the band if you are just looking at the album cover.
The Hard-Fi (3rd right) album cover is something very different to a lot of stereotypical covers, it has no picture of the band, or anything relevant to the band, just a bold yellow background with writing saying "No Cover Art" along with the band and album name. I feel that the colours make the album cover what it is and the simplicity makes its so unique.
An album cover should reflect the genre of music, this is because although it is highly likely that a person thinking of buying an album will know the music, maybe because they've herd some previews on iTunes or have heard a single or two from the album but there is a likelihood of people looking at the album and not knowing what kind of music it is, because of this it is almost an unwritten law that the album cover should represent the style of music. Some stereotypical views of album covers with regards to this are R'n'B music will have a close up of the artist (usually preferred by record companies) under some kind of lighting because pop music very often uses the artists good looks to sell records especially with female artists due to the way society works (this happens in all genres but predominantly pop/R'n'B). This is shown below with a selection of album covers from some of the top selling pop music artists of recent times.
Dance music will usually have a dark background and/or include bright colours to reflect the sort of atmosphere in clubs. The genre of music very often has a model on the front of the cover, mainly because 'sex sells', also because there is usually much less singing in the songs, this means having the artist on the cover is not very important because they are not so associated with the music as Beyonce is with her songs.
Alternative/Rock/Indie genres tend not to use the artists faces either, certainly not as much as pop artists. Many of these albums will be predominantly artwork of a certain kind, this tends to be very colorful and bold.
The research I've done into this has been helped with the work that i have recently done on Andrew Goodwin's 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' (1992) where he says that each genre of music has certain styles, there's demand from record companies to put the artists face on the cover, references to voyeurism particularly in females and that there can be inter textual references.
One more thing that I found when looking at different CD covers was that if a CD cover has a picture on then it very rarely has much else on the ocver, this makes the picture much more bold and the focus of attention.
I have also found that the size of a CD front cover is 12cm x 12cm
Monday, 8 March 2010
Daniel Chandler report
Personal Homepages and Construction of Identity on the Web
Homepages can be compared to bedroom walls of teenagers, for reasons such as posters and pictures of celebrities such as sports figures and music artists can be compared to the things that they display on things such as Facebook and twitter. It helps the individual create a personal identity for themselves, and for other people to see. Due to homepages, people can almost meet you without physically ever meeting you, when people do this it is never 100% certain they meet the real you, they meet the person you want to be/ the person you want others to see, this could mean you portray yourself in a different way or use someone elses picture and claim it's you. You can create your own personal identity without anyone knowing if its the real you or not.
Communication via the web is not as easy as it is in person, for example, when you speak to someone online you don't see things such as facial expressions, body language or gestures. This can make communication harder to understand.
People can choose to reveal different amounts of personal information on homepages, such as relationship status' on Facebook for one example, people could also post anything they want, no matter how personal it may be.
People can post numerous amounts of content of the Internet nowadays, for example some people can make blogs online now and become famous for it. This means that people have a new way of communicating and getting their ideas out, whether it means it is via the Internet, it means someone can make a big difference and everyone has the opportunity to change the world from their computer.
Homepages can be compared to bedroom walls of teenagers, for reasons such as posters and pictures of celebrities such as sports figures and music artists can be compared to the things that they display on things such as Facebook and twitter. It helps the individual create a personal identity for themselves, and for other people to see. Due to homepages, people can almost meet you without physically ever meeting you, when people do this it is never 100% certain they meet the real you, they meet the person you want to be/ the person you want others to see, this could mean you portray yourself in a different way or use someone elses picture and claim it's you. You can create your own personal identity without anyone knowing if its the real you or not.
Communication via the web is not as easy as it is in person, for example, when you speak to someone online you don't see things such as facial expressions, body language or gestures. This can make communication harder to understand.
People can choose to reveal different amounts of personal information on homepages, such as relationship status' on Facebook for one example, people could also post anything they want, no matter how personal it may be.
People can post numerous amounts of content of the Internet nowadays, for example some people can make blogs online now and become famous for it. This means that people have a new way of communicating and getting their ideas out, whether it means it is via the Internet, it means someone can make a big difference and everyone has the opportunity to change the world from their computer.
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Evidence of asking artist
We contacted Foo Fighters on www.twitter.con to ask for permission to use their song "Best of You" for our media coursework.
Filming
We have now done our filming in the field where the singer is by himself with a microphone, we did this on Thursday 25 Feb, from lesson 4, into lunch and half way through lesson 5, I feel that it went very well and we filmed enough to have the whole song as the singer in the field so there's no danger of us not having enough footage to make our video. Luke decided he would be the singer and we got the work done very quickly with minimal difficulties and to a high standard. We have also started to edit and get the song synced with the lip singing, but have not been able to do more than 30 seconds worth because we have not got the storyline filmed yet. We chose to film in the field to represent the narrative, the fact that the singer is completely alone now that he's relationship has ended and this is shown as he is alone on the field.
Music Video Development
We decided that we defiantly wanted to use the idea of the singer standing in a field with a microphone and a microphone stand, but we knew that this would not be enough to make a good music video and gain the full amount of marks possible. So we then thought of different possible storylines to go with the song, due to previous research this wasn’t too hard as we knew that the song was about a couple that had broken up so we wanted to show that the singer was singing about an experience he may have had, so we chose to make sure whoever we had acting as the singer would also be in the storyline.
When we knew what we were going to try and do we realised that if the same person was in the video all the way through both singing and telling a story, the video would get confusing for a viewer. After some time thinking about it and discussing ideas we chose that we would make the storyline in black and white, this means that not only it is clear to a viewer what is what on the video but it also represents that it is history and in the past.
We also had an idea that we could introduce the music video with a small clip of film before the music starts, this was an idea we thought of when watching music videos on www.youtube.com where one or two videos did the same thing. We found that it adds to the storyline strongly and helps explain what is going on, so we decided we would have a small scene of a girl slapping the lead singer saying “what did you think you were doing?”
We want to show that the singer is unhappy and struggling with he’s life after losing he’s partner, so we want to show some scenes where he would be sitting in bed with food and beer with an Xbox doing nothing with he’s life, possibly looking at photos of when he was happy to show the contrast.
We then had an idea of showing the contrast with a different angle, by showing the life he’s ex girlfriend is now living, with a new partner, having fun and enjoying life, this would help the audience understand the story and why the singer is depressed.
We thought that it would be a good idea to use an idea we got from watching videos online and use still images for added effect during the chorus, this would add a structure to the video if we used a different picture for every time the words “the best” come up in the chorus and it would show more of the storyline along with it.
We went through the lyrics of the song and decided where about in the song we would show what, this is shown on the picture below, the blue is storyline, the green is the scenes in the field with the singer, and the orange are the pictures.
Production Plan
We decided that in order to do our work successfully within the time we have we would have to make a plan and stick to it. We wanted to make it both a realistic amount of time to do it all in and also allow ourselves enough time just in case things go wrong on the day or have technical problems so we can still get it all done. This is a picture of the plan we made,
The colours are the different stages in our work, orange = planning, green = production and blue = album covers and adverts idividual work.
By 11/2/2010 we want to of finished planning and began filming, by 18/2/2010 we want to have our filming completely done, by 2/3/2010 we want to of finished all of our work. This means that we would finish a long time before the deadline so there is some margin for error with time to correct any mistakes.
The colours are the different stages in our work, orange = planning, green = production and blue = album covers and adverts idividual work.
By 11/2/2010 we want to of finished planning and began filming, by 18/2/2010 we want to have our filming completely done, by 2/3/2010 we want to of finished all of our work. This means that we would finish a long time before the deadline so there is some margin for error with time to correct any mistakes.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
