Evaluation – Part 3

Evaluation – part 3

View more presentations from OC92.

Final Shooting Diary

Storyboard

This is my storyboard that I put together using slideshare.

Storyboard

View more presentations from OC92.

Album Covers

The focus of this album cover is very much the artist. Amy Winehouse is sitting infront of a blackboard, which means the viewers eyes are nowhere else but on her - simply because there is nothing else to look at. The house colours here are black and white. The idea of the album being called 'back to black', and her sitting infront of a black board is quite clever. It gives me the impression that by this she means she is going back to basics, what she knows best. That's why she is the focus of the cover.

Ancillary Research

Two very different types of music magazine are represented here. The magazine on the left, Vibe, looks like more of a music gossip kind of magazine. I can tell this just by looking at the front cover of the magazine. Whereas the magazine on the right, Q, looks to me like it is much more about the music itself, rather than the gossip surrounding the industry. I may be wrong as I never read either of them, but that is just the first impressions I get.

Magazine Article

We did some research into magazine adverts that well known artists had published, we had to get an idea of some of the things we needed to include. Such as where to buy the album, quotes from magazines and newspapers and the brand identity is general. Again, the image is taken in the underpass where we filmed parts of the video. The graffiti on the walls make the image very eye catching and appealing.

Ancillary Tasks

This is the album cover for our CD. The front image is a selection of three different images all merged together. The song names on the back of the album are actually the original songs made my the band. We chose to take the pictures in the underpass as the colourisation is interesting there. The graffiti adds to the mood of the image.

Location Shots

This is the road where Alfie is sitting on at the end of the video.

Here is the path that we filmed me and amy walking down, when she is on the 'rebound'

We chose to film here because it is a very peaceful and calm location and fitted the footage well.

The sofa at my house where the couple sit at the beginning of the video.

One of the criticisms of our video was the location of this shot, however we decided to still run with it.

The cul-de-sac where Alfie chases Amy out of the house.

Inside Alfie's car when he is driving around.

The underpass where the lip syncing is done.

We chose to film in the underpass as the graffiti on the wall makes an interesting background in the video. Another analogy that could be used is that, Alfie starts at one end of the tunnel and walks through it, (the tunnel is dark in the middle, as is his mood at that time) sort of reflecting the journey he takes through the music video.

This is the start of the underpass, this was he first part of the video that we filmed.

We used this low angle shot when the leaves are being kicked in anger.

The church where Alfie stands outside near the end of the video. This is a very quiet area of the town and reflected Alfie's mood in the video.

Evaluation - Part Four

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

Throughout this entire project we have had to rely on media technology. Firstly, using a digital camera to take location shots, and also a canon DV video camera to actually film our music video.
We also had to overcome any issues to do with the equipment, for example we weren't always able to have access to tripods, so sometimes our improvisation skills were put to the test!
We used the macs software and programmes to do the editing for our video, using programmes such as garage band, imovie and itunes.
When putting together the ancillary tasks, we used other editing software such as 'gimp' and serif page plus.

Evaluation - Part Two

How effective is the combination of your media product and ancillary tasks?



I think our final product is a very strong piece of work, and in a way has exceeded our own expectations.

As I mentioned in earlier post on my blog, we had to abandon our original song idea for various reasons. My group and I were given a couple of days to find ourselves a new song idea to work with, and also to prepare a pitch to present to the class for the next lesson. If we had selected this song in the first place then we would have been able to spent far more time on it and probably improved it quite a lot. But nevertheless, I am very pleased with how the video has turned out. In my opinion, the main task together with the ancillary tasks, look very professional.

Evaluation - Part One

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

When filming and putting together our music video, it was important we took into consideration all of the background information and knowledge we had learned about real proffesional music videos - and the rules they obide by.
We decided that our chosen song would work best as a narrative based video. By doing this we were able to tell a story throughout the video focusing on relationship issues. Personally, as a viewer I prefer watching narrative based music videos as opposed to performance based ones. I think they are far more interesting and appealing to the viewer.
One of Goodwin's Principals talked about matching lyrics to visuals. Everytime we filmed a scene we had this rule in our minds. And by watching our video, it can be seen that we executed this quite well as the visuals more often than not, tie in with the lyrics being sung at the time.
When researching music videos we learned that the footage always cuts in time with the beat. So when editing, we spent a lot of time making sure out footage was cutting in time with the beat of the music.
When constucting our magazine advert and CD cover, we had to try to create a 'brand or identity' I think Alfie is the identity, if you like, of the video as the story is based on him and he is the character that features the most in it. So it made sense to put him on the cover.

More Filming

The next stage of filming took place along side ninesprings river. This was the scene where the female character, played by Amy, is on a 'rebound date' with a male character played by myself. This part of the video is showing the separation of the original couple.
We filmed the same footage twice, once with me and amy, then once with alfie and amy. By doing this we were able to show the past and present times.

Final Product

Filming Continued...

The next stage of our filming took us back to the living room in my house. This time we had Amy playing the female character in the song with us, so we were able to film more.


We added in some lip syncing aswell this time, as we were told this would gain us more marks.
We managed to get a lot of important footage filmed today that set the scene well.

Song Lyrics Analysed

Artist Background - The Nites.

The Nites consist of two people. Anthony, who does the vocals, and Michael, who plays the guitar. Both men are from South London, they met in 2004 and began playing gigs round the acoustic circuit in and around London.
At first they only sung cover songs, but now they write all their own stuff.
The band have recently released a new album which is available for download on itunes.
The Mail on Sunday described them as 'Brilliant Pure Popular Rock.' They also went on to say 'The Nites continue to build on their experiences and thrive on the excitement of what lies ahead'

Locations Continued...

Another filming location will take place in a restaurant. We want to show the couple being together and use close ups and reaction shots to represent their feelings to the audience.
In the song, the lyrics mention about a 'fake smile' so it is important we try and make reference to this in the visuals. The timing of matching the lyrics to the visuals is extremely important, if the timing is out then it will be made to look like one of those badly dubbed translated adverts seen on television.

Shooting Locations

We have a variety of different locations where we are filming the footage for our music video.
The order if which we are filming is not necessarily the order in which it will appear in our final piece.
The first location we used was my living room, here we filmed Alfie (who is playing the main male character) is sitting down looking through old photo albums, remeniscing through photos of him and his ex/girlfriend. We took a lot more footage than we will actually need but we thought that its better to have too much than too little. We used a range of different camera angles, such as close ups and reaction shots.
The next part of our filming took place inside Alfies car, he was filmed driving from Stevenage to Hitchin. In our video this will signify him just trying to clear his head and him having some time alone to think about what is going on in his life. We also filmed him driving into his road from an upstairs bedroom window. This gave us a nice high angle shot. Not all of this footage will be used but we will be able to experiment with it when we are editing.
The next stage of our filming took us to ninesprings park, this is where we film the main female character on a 'rebound date' with another male. (played by myself.) Close up and reaction shots are important here as we need to portray how the girl is feeling. The idea of this rebound date came from listening to the lyrics repeatedly, this is our interpreation of what may be happening. The lyric 'whatever you gotta do' shows that the girl is doing anything she can to try and move on but its not as easy as she hopes it is.

Filming Effects and Ideas

Now we have a solid idea and understanding of the song we thought about how we could present our ideas through the camera.
We quickly decided to use the flashbacks in our video, to show different time periods and also to show emotions/feelings. We used flashbacks in our previous course last year, and we felt it worked well, so we decided to stick to our strengths.

Last time we used the flashback effect, colour represented present day, and black and white represented the past. However, this time we decided to do it the other way round.
Colour would show past memories of when the couple were happy and content with one another, and black and white would show the present day when things aren't so positive anymore. We decided to do it this way round because we felt colour shows happiness and black and white shows a feeling of negativity and generally feeling low, drained.
For the colour parts we would show the couple together and how they once were, the black and white would show them going their separate ways. The split screen affect will also work well here as we will be able to show what the two individuals are doing when they are apart.

Interpretation of the song

After listening to the song all the way through a few times, interpretations of what the lyrics mean are able to be formed. When we listened to the song as a group, Alfie, Joe, and I verbally brainstormed what we thought could be going on at particular points of the song, and tried to create a possible story line for the song itself. This helped us understand the song in more detail, and also gave us a good idea of how we would go out and film the music video.
The way we have interpreted the song may not be the same as how the artist interprets but we feel our interpretation works well for us.

We believe that the song is about a couple going through a rough patch in their relationship. The song is from the mans perspective of what is going on. He is saying that he knows his relationship is not working but he desperately wants to give it another go, his girlfriend however, isn't so sure that she wants to be with him any longer. The lyrics say that whatever happens he will always be there for her. 'You're gonna make it to the other side' shows us that he is confident that they will get through this tough time, and will, in time, be happy again.