EVALUATION

Evaluation

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

How have you stuck to conventions of genre, forms and conventions of music video and musical genres?

An important convention of a typical indie music video is to show the working class background that the group, usually, originates from. In our music video we have incorporated this aspect as we have used a house that seems fitting to the bands original backgrounds and there are other things that connote the working class such as the bands clothes, which are similar to the people in the house scene. Even on the CD cover we have used a house that seems working class. All of our media products have a working class subtlety to them; again the dress sense on the website expresses this idea. We have also stuck to the narrative/performance structure that runs through most indie music videos as we have a performance from the band integrated with a narrative of a party scene.

Have you used postmodern ideas to challenge existing music video conventions?

Indie music videos are forever challenging typical conventions of music videos. We have challenged a typical party scene by adding in hallucinations of clowns and other mysterious things. This adds an edge to our music video and sets it apart from typical pop videos. By suggesting that a little girl has come up with this scenario challenges society’s beliefs and may shock the audience or make them think upon the way today’s society influences children. 

What overall effect does the challenging of these conventions have on your product?

The fact that we’ve suggested drug abuse creates this overall idea of a struggling society and challenges the audience to think about their lives as well as enjoying a music video.   

-Katie

Feedback from Class

We have gained feedback from two groups in our class, male and female. The evaluated our music video, and told us about shot quality, relevance according to genre and overall suitability.

- Sophie.

Evaluation

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

-What technologies did you employ to create your production? Did the drive your creativity?

We used applications such as IWEB for the website project, Photoshop to make the Digipack, and IMOVIE, to create the music video.  We also used Photoshop to produce the images for IWEB. We found that the programs allowed us to create our ideas, and put them into a real piece, although at some points they restricted us.

- How did you use technology to research and plan your production? How have you used technology to gather audience feedback?

We used YouTube and other websites, to research into the sort of video we would like to produce ourselves. To plan our production, we used Blogger.com, we posted all of our ideas and feedback onto this website which also allowed us to keep a portfolio of our work, and evaluate our progress throughout the course. To gain feedback from our audience, we posted the video onto facebook, which allowed our friends to comment on it, this also allowed us to gain feedback, from a fresh audience, and not just our class, which already have an expectation, as they know our planned idea.

- How has online media technology enabled you to distribute your project to a wide audience?

As previously stated, we posted the video onto facebook, so this allowed us to push the video onto a wider audience. Also we have added the video up to YouTube, so this allows us to reach the whole world, rather than just our friends/classmates on facebook. 

- All Group.

Evaluation - Audience Feedback

Audience feedback was often what drove us to continuously try to improve our work, including the video and both the Digipak and Website. For the digipack, we put a few samples of the images such as the front and back covers onto Facebook and asked for people’s preferences and opinions. We got several comments back, which we took on board and chose the design we felt was strongest and had the most positive feedback. 

In terms of the video, we got audience feedback from people in our lessons that filled out a sheet for us towards the last stages of editing. It helped having a peer assessment near the end because they could spot problems or areas for improvements we had over looked such as a caption we have over one of the clowns that continued over the next clip and that we had a clip that was too over exposed. As well as giving us areas to improve, they also told us bits they liked which helped us to see that the video was working and we put this feedback on the Blog. 

For example we were unaware of a background space of the website but have now filed in using images that we also used as part of the digipak as some of our feedback was to give a running theme to the website and digipak.

Overall, we found having audience feedback was very useful to help us spot problems or areas for improvement visually and technically however there could be problems with this as people have different ideas of genre and image for bands so may give us advice that doesn’t fit the logistics but luckily we did not face this problem.

-Rebecca

Final Video

This is our final edit of the music video This House Is A Circus by Arctic Monkeys.

CD Final Piece

Here's a final screen grab of the CD digipack, completed.

-Sophie

Evaulation

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

-          How have you maintained a clear image and them throughout your campaign?

Throughout the course we have aimed to stick with the same theme, which was of a circus/clown theme, we wanted the theme to be trippy/eary as well, so the dark and eariness does come through also. This comes across in all of our pieces- the video in an obvious way, and in the ancillary pieces, abit more subtly, like for instance the website piece, it’s dark and the only hint of circus theme is the moon that is a clown’s face, this along with the background which has snapshots from the video in. I feel the theme runs stongly throughout the campaign.

-          How is the website, CD cover and video interrelated? Do they have the same purpose?

The video, website and CD cover all feature the band, on a strong level, obviously the video features more of a focus on the narrative, but that’s just down to the intention/purpose of the piece. For the video, it’s not just about showing the band, it’s about making the audience entertained, and want to keep watching. Whereas the other pieces, it’s more about showing the band- and to give the audience a way of connecting with the band. The video is to catch the eye of a new audience but also to keep the original audience happy too, once the audience is captured, they will research the band but going onto their website, or buying their CD.  So the pieces need to be linked, but also different so that the audience can see different sides of the band, and connect with them to become a proper fan.

-          What purpose or relationship do they all have? Do they target the audience?

As answered briefly in the previous answer, the pieces need to work together to built up a fanbase. I feel that we have done this well, and have succeeded in setting a clear theme, that also shows the band- which is what the audience is interested in in the long term. The audience is targeted as the narrative of the video is relatable- in certain aspects. People will be able to relate to being at a party and feeling slightly confused, and ultimately, the video is funny to watch so it keeps the audience entertained.  

- Sophie.

Website final Piece

Here is the snapshot of our FINAL piece for the website, we're happy with how it's turned out, after adding the last finishing touches by putting more pictures onto the backgrounds, and making them blend in more. Also, we've added the music video onto the website.

-Sophie.

Extra Footage

On Tuesday evening I took out a camera, tripod and light so that I could get some more shots of the girl playing with the dolls house so that it would fit with the footage inside the house. 

This was quite an awkward shoot to set up as I had to borrow the dolls house again and organize when the young girl, Kester would be available to film with. However once sorted I got the shots required just to bring the narrative of the video together. 

- Rebecca

Final Editing

 

In yesterday's lesson ( Weds 22nd ) me and Katie did the last bits of editing and some finishing touches as well as adding in the bits of footage of the dolls house.

As well as this, we improved the photo-frame moving clown scene by moving it more inline with the frame so it doesn't move out of place.

We got another group and Leanne, our teacher to watch the video and no one spotted anything that needed to be changed however we will keep returning to it so we can be certain. 

-Rebecca and Katie

Website progress

Today whilst looking at the final website design, we came to the conclusion that the format is very similar to a poster. So, to fix this we decided to create a background to go on either side of the template. This way it will make the website look less like a poster. This is what we have created today, although we are going to make a few touches, we would like to add more pictures from the photo shoot that we did. Here's what we've got so far. -

-Sophie

Video Peer Assessment

Also in today's lesson we had to do a peer assessment. This is the feedback we got:

Overall creativity - Excellent 

Holding a shot steady, where appropriate - Excellent

Framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate - Excellent

Using a variety of shot distances as appropriate - Excellent

Shooting material appropriate for a music video - Excellent

Mise-en-scene appropriate for a music video - Excellent

Editing making the meaning apparent to the viewer - Excellent

Varied shot transitions, captions and other effects that are appropriate - Good 

Matching sound with images and editing the music - Good

Overall the music video so far is - Excellent

The group also made some comments which were that a caption over a part in the video is a bit slow because of the clip in between and that it is a bit bright when Tony lifts a cover up, revealing a clown. 

We will now continue editing and consider these comments. 

-Rebecca, Sophie and Katie

Today's Lesson

Today we came in early and edited for a good four hours so we got a lot done. We put it in a lot of shots of the band as clowns towards the end where the music builds up mixed in with the long shot of Tony with the fast movement of people behind him to show the chaos.  We also started to put effects on shots from Tony's perspective as well as on some of the instruments in the clown chaos at the end. To make it even stranger we used clips from the green screen of the clown to bring back elements already used in the film which all helps to build up to the climax of the video. 


The photo above is a shot of how the instrument looked after we put the swap Red and Blue effect on which we believe looks good and works well with the timing of the music. 


Becca and Katie

Website Design final

Today we have just about finished the website design, maybe to make a few touches. We aim to have the video on the page somewhere, at the bottom but as we have not yet completed that we cannot add that as yet. Here's a snapshot of the design.

- Sophie.

Editing the Music Video-

Today we have progressed with editing, we are now near to the end, all we need to do is add some effects to where tony's character is seeing things differently, to make it seem more 'trippy'. Here is a snapshot of our work today-

-Sophie, Rebecca & Katie. 

Today's Lesson - Monday 6th

As well as continuing with editing the video we carried on designing the insides of the didpack. This is the design so far for the CD and inside of the digipack. We decided to stick to the newspaper and clown theme as it has run throughout with the video and the front cover. However this time we have included pictures of the band as clowns to give across the indie feel. We also put the song titles on the CD round the edges because it looks more interesting.

We may mess around a bit more with this design.

-Rebecca

Album Cover and Back

As it snowed and college was closed, we decided to all meet up and work on the album design. This is the nearly finished album front and back design for our chosen song. It has differed from the previous designs as the front with the windows on the house is more central and we have made the text more circus like. On the back we have put the song titles on the newspaper and included all the relevant information for the band and company Domino Records which is also on the back of previous Arctic Monkeys albums.

The only changes we will make now is to make the title on the front a bit more evan so it looks neater.

- Rebecca

Today's lesson- editing the music video

Here's a snapshot of our progression from today's lesson, whilst working on the video. We have now successfully edited the first 30 seconds of the music video. And are now working on putting the rest together.

-Sophie & Katie.

Website Design

In todays lesson we had a go at making the original website design more our own by using a photo from our shoot at the second filming as the background as its dark and mysterious. We got the band name to fit along the hedge but may change the colour, font and caps. 


-Rebecca