Evaluation - #4 How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Through all of these stages I have used Blogger, a blog online I keep a record of what we have done each day, keeping track of progress and showing evidence and material for the blog, giving visuals to illustrate what I have been talking about. Blogger is a great way to layout day to day activities, I can come back to posts and edit them and add to them, I can place photos and videos in the posts with ease and allow people to comment and I can share this blog with other people. The Internet is used by majority of people around the world, it as grown over the last century and as become the number one source for research, ideas, sharing, communicating and so by using a blog, which quite a majority use, I am able to post my material easily without being on paper.


 Using New Media Technologies for the Construction Stage

Software's - Adobe Premier and Photoshop

I have used the software's Adobe Premier Pro, advanced video editing software you can buy from home. Adobe's products are used majority of the time; they have a vast variety of products that are used on the Internet and on computer. Adobe Premier Pro as allowed us to construct our video, place our footage from the DV Camera and edit the footage on the time line. By using this advanced software we are able to do more than standard video editing softwares, such as Windows Movie Maker, can do. We can change its brightness and contrast, just like you can do within Photoshop, you can cut footage with ease, you can trim pieces down to the very milli second and you have a variety of effects to work with. You can add text with ease, place it where ever you want over the footage and it can run over several or other pieces of footage. You can edit the text with different styles and add effects to them. We haven't used text within ours we have only used the time line for our editing and black and white style and keeping it in sync. Our opportunity to use this as enabled us to produce something professional, although music companies would probably use something much more advanced than Adobe Premier Pro, with the never ending growing of technology becoming more advanced and the sales are more frequent and more advanced software's available.

Photoshop is used by industries, fashion industries, design/publication industries, and even at home. Photoshop can be purchased at home and used for personal or business use. It has a variety of tools that are advanced for making professional looking photos/publications at home and for businesses. We have used Photoshop to create our Promotional material. Our CD Digi pack and Posters where all created with Photoshop, sometime I took the material home to place certain objects on the poster, such as the stars and the Twitter, Facebook and iTunes logos. Just like Adobe Premier, its effects are much more advanced than softwares such as Microsoft Picture It 9. Adobe Photoshop as a much more advanced cropping tools, by magically erasing certain areas of colour/background/space to make the cropping process easier for wanting just one part of the picture. Adobe produces more advanced software's, building up from Photoshop and Premier Pro. The increase of technology as enabled companies to find new ways of creating better products. We are able to use effects that other software's wont have, they may have some of the effects that Photoshop have but not as advanced, the ability to adjust the effect to what you want to that Photoshop has.

Equipment

 We used a Canon DV Camera to record our footage, along with a tripod to keep the camera steady. The camera has high quality capture and enables us to zoom in and out and with the tripod we are able to pan and tilt the camera. We are using equipment that you can buy at home; music industries would be using bigger, more advanced, higher technical and wider screen shots than we are. By using this camera we are able to capture our scenes, and place them on our time line on Adobe Premier Pro. Our video camera is mainly used for home use and Youtube based. Although we are not using HD quality, as technology is moving on fast with now 3D technology, we still construct a high quality piece of footage.

We have also used a Sony Camera for the photo shooting, for the promotional material. The camera is high quality in pixels and can enable you to edit how you  capture your photo through setting, flash and face detection. The control dial is where you select the setting of the scene, from Outdoor, to indoor, to party, to landscape etc and as well as this to Movie.






















Using New Media Technologies for the Research Stages

Through the Internet I am able to use the worlds most used search engine, Google. Through this I am able to research about present Artists, similar Artists to our style of music video, look at ideas of other videos of our style, promotional material ideas, general research at the beginning of this blog on the best and worst genres to work with and a better understanding of the Music videos and their artists. Through Google I have been able to find Sites with relevant information and Images that can allow me to illustrate my work. Through Google you can get to Youtube which as also allowed me to illustrate my work and help me with the research process. I am able to access sites through URL, by knowing a sites URL I can instantly type this into the URL bar at the top of the page of my Internet browser , Firefox, there are a vast range of web browsers depending on what style you want to view the Internet, and by typing the accurate URL in I can go straight to the site.


Using New Media Technologies for the Planning Stages

 I used Google maps to show the ideas for locations for my blog. Through the ever growing new technology that is increasing, the Internet as enabled us to view our world through Google maps, we are placed on the road and can see the location as if we are there. This enables me to see the surrounding location and see if it is good for the mise-en-scene. Google maps is handy if we struggled to get to a certain place as you get the directions from one place to another, and by viewing the location you are able to recognise it when you arrive at the location.

I have used Youtube, the number one Video sites on the Internet, where you can find nearly all music videos and artists and their songs and much more. I used Youtube to look at ideas for our video, looking at artists and their material, especially for the effects of black and white. Youtube as been most useful for watching, getting inspiration and ideas and analysing music videos. It would be the most useful due to the fact we used it to upload both the first cut and then final cut videos. This as helped with planning when looking for a cover of a song for our music video, many people on Youtube submit videos of their covers, either going solo, or as a collaboration, they have their own covers. By doing so we are starting with fresh talent and the song Hiding My Heart doesn't have a music video to it, so that proved to be a good choice to. The fact the song only had the guitar in the song was a positive factor, we didn't have to find all the different instruments if they were more and we would need to have practised how to mime all the instruments. Youtube as been one of the useful sources and has proved to help us with feedback and evaluation stages as well as illustrating the blog.




Using New Media Technologies for the Evaluation Stages

 The most popular and used websites on the Internet, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter have prove useful within the Evaluation stages. Facebook as been used by enabling my friends to comment on a video I have shared from Youtube to my statuses. Twitter as also been able to post the video being uploaded on my account through Youtube. With the rise of the Internets ability to do more, we can now connect to different accounts and share information such as videos from Youtube and allow our friends from Facebook and Twitter see this. People have given us feedback on both Facebook and Youtube for both the First Cut and Final Cut videos, so we can use different sources to allow people to comment if they don't have an account on one of those websites.

For the evaluation stages I used a variety of media technologies, based on the interent, using several websites and through my results have compared them to my own work. I have used Google Images to search for the Adele 21 album cover, as she was a influence and the artists we were trying to use for generic conventions and style.

 For both research and evaluation, I have found that I have made a successful and professional Digi Pack and Poster, keeping with the same style and outlook constant throughout. I have analysised how successful this is within my evaluation. (See here > http://babybatchloemv.blogspot.com/2012/02/evaluations-2-how-effective-is.html

Through the Evaluation stages I have looked at these pictures taken from Google Images for Adele 21 and taken from my computer, using photoshop to create the DTP work, and transfering it to my blog to show, evidence, analysise and compare. I have also looked at the video Someone Like You by Adele and compared and contrasted our video to hers, and see what we both have done and what we have done differently. Also explianing why Adele can do more and make it look proffessional and use glamorous locations as a successful artist. (See here > http://babybatchloemv.blogspot.com/2012/02/compare-your-text-to-real-media_05.html

www.babybatchloemv.blogspot.com

All my research, planning and Evaluation, using media technologies is logged in here on my Blogspot, where I can write and Evidence my project. This is enabled me to evidence all the technologies I have used by using a media technology itself, being able to evidence my work easily and using something that is accessable and easier to edit through this new media technology.

Evaluation - #3 What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Collecting all our feedback together, I have noticed there are similarities in the feedback, we have the positive comment on the black and white elements of the video and the negative comments on the syncing issues and the over dramatic acting. For both the first cut and the final cut there is this pattern on these comments, firstly the first set of feedback we got from the first cut, we had feedback given to us both from Youtube and Facebook. 

Negative Feedback

The over dramatic acting was a major issue and was one that was the most obvious. It let some elements of the music video down. Josh and Chloe on Facebook both pointed this out on the first cut, Josh put:

"Acting is far too dramatic compared to the song...but your still hearing a soft song."

Chloe agreed and also added:

"the acting is far too dramatic for the song"

From this I understand why I would have over done the acting. My music interest is different to this song, the song choice is something that I wouldn't normally listen to, but I do like Adele's style and songs. I normally listen and watch music videos from rock/metal bands, especially female singers who are using high range and powerful vocals and in their music videos they are powerful within their performance style, depending on the song, even if its a soft song, they do use a powerful expression, a passionate element that female front women carry in their music. This is probably due to the fact its material they have written and this song we have chosen is not our own, but someone's cover of the song, their style of singing this song. With no experience in working within a music video, I have took part in videos, such as TV Dramas and other projects, but a music video is something I haven't tried and as we did struggle to find actors I took up the role to be within the video. So this feedback will help me when other future projects come along in the future, where I can watch how I act out within the video, not to be other dramatic.

The over dramatic elements also link to the syncing problems that our audience noticed. Chloe on Facebook mentioned this after saying about it being over dramatic and said:

"it's obvious in some areas that it's being mimed"

Looking back on the video I can see where Chloe is coming from, as the over dramatic acting wouldn't fit the songs speed and style and so it would make it obvious that I am miming to the song.

Over on Youtube however, MsNRGBunny didn't mention the over dramatic acting but did mention syncing problems:

"Only noticed one "hiccup" where the lips were out of sync with music"

Maybe from this response this person didn't mind having the over dramatic acting and wasn't so much of a problem. However from other audience's feedback it seems it is the over dramatic acting that seems to be the problem.

 

Positive Feedback

The other piece of feedback we got similar comments on the use of images and the song go well together, created a powerful effect for the audience. On Youtube for the first cut user MsNRGBunny commented on this:

"The images and the song itself were lovely" 

This is also similar to those comments shown on the Youtube Final Cut, where users NoobianRose commented:

"I really like the b/w shots, these seemed the most powerful. Like the shot of you looking out of the window while you're riding in the a car"

This was also similar to the comment lyndaleamac posted:

"I liked the black and white effects in the song"

It seems that our choice of black and white for the non singing shots proved to have made a positive impact on our audience. The black and white seemed to be something that audiences like within a  video, they indicate the tone of the song and emphasise the message of the song through visual, the effect of black and white instead of colour as been something that music videos have used for years. We had this balance of black and white with colour to balance everything out, to give variety and act as a sort of key for what each type of shot or scene stood for and this proved have succeeded by the comments of our audience.

Evaluations - #2 How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Our video and promotional materials are effective by combining elements and styles throughout, through the black and white element. Our promotional material helps to support our video and our video also allows the audience to be reminded of our promotional material of the pond picture shown in the Digi Pack and is also shown in the video.

Our music video and our Promotional Material as kept certain forms throughout, we have kept with the idea of black and white within the video within the Poster and Digi Pack. By doing so we are continuing to tell the audience of the artist's style and that nothing seems out of place, we have the one colour and black and white scheme. The Red colour symbolising the poppies in the video and also it stands out to draw the audiences eye, making them remember the album Changes. It also allows them to see the album cover twice and remember the image, so when they are telling it to their friends they can describe it to them and as well as this the name Chloe Berry appears on the front cover of the Digi Pack and 3 times on the Poster, on the picture for the Digi Pack front cover and for the Twitter and Facebook accounts, which will also stick within the audiences mind. Our certain style is constant throughout the Digi Pack we have a balance of photo shooting and Photoshopped style pictures. 3 pictures are done through Photoshop, with the lighting effect, the cropping of my from the photo shoots and the text. The other 3, 1 of which is from the video, are all in black and white and are representing the photo shoot for the Digi Pack. This keep the Digi Pack even with each style of material.

Within our video we have the pond scene in colour and which is also shown on the Digi Pack in black and white, so this reminds the audience when watching the music video and looking at the Digi Pack they are reminded that we have a music video that contains black and white footage. The black and white footage, just as it is in the Digi Pack stand for the non singing shots the ones that stand more for the story line and the element of the video that creates a atmosphere and as an effect on the audience. The black and white in the Digi Pack stand for the non singing shots, as we see I am sat on a swing, if this was shown as a piece of footage on the video this would be a  non singing shot.













As well as this the close up shots will also have an effect of the audience to recognise the artists face and features. We have close ups of me from the side on and while singing. This will help when audiences are identifying me and this helps with promotional material, the face of the artist on the Digi Pack and the poster will keep promoting the video. You see me in the video majority of the time which will keep the audiences interest on the artists, their facial features, dress code and hair style, by keeping with this on the promotional material they instantly recognise the artist as many people now who are fans of bands or artist will recognise their faces and their promotional style.

Evaluation - #1 In what ways does your Media Product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of Real Media Products?

Product use forms and conventions of Real Media Products

Our video uses the typical conventions you will normally see in a music video. We use the relationship element which is used among nearly all artists in some way shape or form, we have produced something that shows this through a story, the artist and the content within the video.

We have used the artist has the character within the music video, a typical form for an artist to star in their own videos either as themselves or as a character. This can show the artists potential, their skills and assets to improve their success of the video, their material and their work. Many artists such as  Rhianna does this, her music generally revolves around love and relationships, problems around relationships and having fun. She takes up a character within this story of the video. We have done this with our video also, the track also adds to this with the lyrics explaining majority of the video, as the visuals help to accompany the meaning of the story. This also helps with the audience, they can relate to what is going on in the video, as relationships and their problems, good elements and bad elements happen in real life and everyone will go through it at least once in their life. This also helps when promoting the video, as an audience can relate to this they will be either sharing this with their friends, and watching this a lot more, they will support the artist and the song. The message will go across to an audience that they might not have faced but find touching and might want to share with their friends too.

The visuals help with sending this message across, we used the memorial statue and poppies to show that he went into the army and died. This also makes the message give a more personal and deep message, as many people have their boyfriends/fiancés/husbands go into the army and have lost their lives. The conventions for the army in music videos are normally used in Punk/Metal/Rock music videos, as they normally contain violence and a male dominated scene, usually done as a male artist/band, such as Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends, the relationship element is there but the exposure to the army element is shown through the front lines of the army. They are able to do this because of the budget and their success as a band, being famous and been around for a long time. An emerging artist will try and use these types of conventions that Green Day or any other famous artist/band use in their videos but on a smaller scale.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU9JoFKlaZ0&ob=av2e

Performance, Singing and non Singing Elements

We use the a variety of different forms used within Music Videos, we have all 3 of the conventional elements, Singing Shots, non Singing Shots and Performance Shots. These have allowed our video to be more entertaining, show that their is a lot going on, making is less boring with the constant editing and also emphasising the message through different means. Evanescence shows this typical convention through their music video My Immortal. All members of the band show one or more of these conventions. We have Ben, who plays the piano and appears within the storyline in non singing/performance shots. Amy appears in non singing and singing shots. The rest of the band John, Rocky, Terry and Tim show the performance shots.

 http://www.notachristianband.com/fav-myimmortal.jpg

Shot all in black and white we have only used this effect as a key or indicator to different parts of the message showing the past and non singing shots, to give variety to the piece and as we have seen from our audience feedback it was a powerful element to the video (See Uploaded Final Cut of Music Video to Youtube + Feedback post > http://babybatchloemv.blogspot.com/2012/02/uploaded-final-cut-of-music-video-to.html and also See below from the post Compare your Text to Real Media post:

By using these forms of styles within the music video gives an audience something to think about as a critique side of the video, something that the audience will expect, we are meeting with audience expectation. We are using conventions that you see in music videos, even successful ones, that contain all these elements, which are what an audience expect, giving variety and a variety of types of scenes/shots for entertainment and the chance to use different camera techniques in appropriate places. We used different camera angles within the performance piece, allowing the audience to see the instruments being played by the artist themselves, to be able to give them variety, the entertainment factor and to see different variations of on takes of a relationship based video.

Advertisement

We have produced two styles of advertisement/promotional material, a Magazine Poster and a CD Digi Pack. We have tried to keep a constant style throughout. Here is our poster and the CD Digi Pack.

We have kept to a constant style through out, the black and white element is throughout both the poster and the Digi Pack, with the slight one colour here and there. We have used the front cover of the CD for the Poster, so this allows an audience to recognise the album cover when they come across it in a store etc. The poster enables us to place the artists in a positive light, giving them star ratings, the text stands out making the audience be drawn to the artists making them look interesting, making the information and the artists important. We have introduced the websites Facebook, Twitter and iTunes

Locations

We have used a variety of locations to make the video entertaining and by using bedrooms, outdoor locations in countryside mise-en-scene to keep with the style and the story throughout.We used bedroom shots to show its her house and that is shows how the female in the story would be like, sitting on her bed telling the audience through lyrics by opening the story. The bedroom is normally where a woman would be found crying, a typical convention of becoming a recluse and not wanting to leave the house.

We also used the hill tops surrounding Burnley as a place somewhere out of the way, somewhere to go walking, a place to think or a favourite spot to look out at. The hills where also windy which also added to that sad and lonely feeling with the coldness giving a melancholy atmosphere.

We shot in Towneley as being a picturesque place within Burnley surrounded by gardens and path walks with trees etc. They have a memorial which was great for the idea of the poppies and the story of the boyfriend dieing in the army.

See Plan for New Idea posts > http://babybatchloemv.blogspot.com/2011/12/planning-for-new-idea.html


Costume

My costume was very simple, I wore a black coat, blue scarf, jeans and brown boots for the outdoor shots,

The Indoor shots for the bedroom shots it was a simple red blouse, jeans and a necklace.

For the performance shots, a pictured white top with a jacket style top, necklace, jeans and brown boots.

The continuity of the style shows how she doesn't make an effort to make herself look more presentable, or trying to make an effort, she wouldn't want to really make an effort when she isn't looking for anybody else when she as lost her boyfriend.

Develop forms and Conventions of Real Media Products

Using websites

 By developing these forms and conventions we used relevant media websites that promote the music video, which Real Artists do such as Evanescence with their music videos What You Want and My Heart Is Broken The ability to use these online websites, enables people to spread the news of the artists, their new works, older works and the information that the artists puts up on the websites, enables people to become interested in them as a person, especially on Twitter and Facebook.

Youtube is the number one place for viewing any type of video, all popular and famous artists have a channel, run by Vevo or other providers, and this allows anybody to comment, show how many views it's got, the ability to share this on other sites such as Twitter and Facebook. People can link their accounts on Youtube to Facebook to Twitter and their activity on a favourite of a video, liking a video, commenting on a video or sharing the video is shown on the both the Facebook and Twitter time lines. The Twitter Time line can be shown on Facebook so this can also double the amount of activity shown on one person's time line, that other people/friends can see.

 See also Upload of Final Cut of Music Video to Youtube + Feedback Post to see how sharing works, we did this to promote the video > http://babybatchloemv.blogspot.com/2012/02/uploaded-final-cut-of-music-video-to.html

Twitter is becoming a great way for popular/famous artists and people to socialise with the fans and other media conglomerates. They can become just like anybody else is on there, sharing what their day was like and updating on a new single/album/video etc to keep fans and people updated, constantly. You can also place the video up on TwitVid which also allows users from Twitter to see that they have posted a video not only on Youtube but TwitVid too, in case the copy write laws are restricting people from other countries from viewing their video on Youtube.

Facebook is also another great place to share the video, by enabling other people to comment on the post about sharing that video, allowing us to gather feedback from different sources in case no one as a Youtube account. Artists such as Evanescence, the band members from 30 Seconds To Mars have a subscription feed to a page that they have created for people to subscribe to, not to add as a friend, to keep up with their latest information about upcoming shows, albums etc and also being a normal person allowing people to see their personalities.



Using software's

We have used house hold software's that you can buy online and in store, Adobe Premier Pro and Adobe Photoshop. These are professional software's, especially Adobe Photoshop, is used by many industries. Adobe Premier Pro was the software we used, it did the job, not a software that Adele's music company would have used, and they would have used something much more expensive and high tech, with the ability to do a lot more than we could. 

Genre

 We are putting forward our interpretation of this kind of Genre forward. Other artists may take ideas from this or this may become a regular thing within other artists' videos, but with real artists, they either have a similar style throughout, keeping with the love theme, or they experiment and try different things with each music video. Some artists have developed over time and have changed in their style, not only in music but in fashion. This also influences on their music video outcome and determines which genre it is put into and what response it will get out of an audience who choose to listen to certain types of genre.


Challenge forms and Conventions of Real Media Products

Our video style would be fighting over other videos for popularity, but seen as I am an emerging artist it won't automatically be the most popular video, or artist. This is my first Music Video as an artists and I am due to bring out an album, for me to become successful I must keep up with producing material, keep making music and music videos and artists usually get involved with many things to put themselves out there. They get interviewed a lot, some formal so not so formal, some present award shows, appear on Radio, on TV Shows. As an emerging artist I have to start from the bottom and make my way up to that popular and famous status. Through my video I challenge the way the forms and conventions of a music video are shown within a particular genre. We are portraying our on take on a relationship with the boyfriend dying in the army, something that happens in reality. People may find out interpretation correct and find our different style interested, a great idea, others may want more, and think that this side of the relationship may look boring, as it is only about the female character and what she is doing, we don't see the boyfriend or any action of what happened to him. The action of what happened to him wouldn't fit our conventions of the music video, the song is too slow and too melancholy.

Some times an artist has trouble with their music company on how they should write their material, how a song/album should sound and not how the artists wants it to be. The reason behind this is the music company thinking about money, the more money they have the better chance they have to produce better music videos and acquire more equipment for the studio and take on other artists. The music company are keeping with Audience expectation, what the audience expect to hear in a song/album and also what they expect to see in the Music Video, an artist normally as majority of control over the Music Video. Evanescence has had this problem many times, through both song/Album work and Music Videos. Evanescence's Fallen Album originally didn't sound like it does today; before the album came out they sent an EP to Wind Up Records, all songs on that EP apart from the songs, Bring Me To Life, Haunted and Tourniquet were made during the 2001-2003 period of making the Fallen Album. The music video for Everybody's Fool is not what Amy wanted it to look like; she had a totally different idea from what the record company made it to be. Amy went through this for many years but when it came down to The Open Door Album, she had a lot more control over it and the Music Videos. The latest Album she as had control over the album but the music company didn't agree with some of the song titles, one of the titles was Purple, this changed to The Change, Vanilla was changed to Erase This. At the beginning of making the Album, Amy was working with a music producer called Steve Lillywhite, the direction of the album was becoming Electronic and too Pop and Amy didnt like the sound of the songs, it wasn't the direction she was looking for. She switched to Nick Raskulinecz who has worked with bands such as Foo Fighters, Stone Sour, Trivium, Velvet Revolver and many more. This as allowed Evanescence to produce a much more heavy album with a few experiment with Synthesisers and two songs that are a gentle melody through pianos, harps and strings.

We have made a company up, which also in reality allows us to promote this record label and show that the work we have produced and worked on with them are good, if we become successful, and continue this. We did have our barriers, we had to think of our audience and not exactly what the artists wanted personally, we had to work as a group and see what the vision was. Gaynor and Melissa had the vision of the style of the video and the promotional material. So by trying to create that style we are gaining a more professional look and sticking to conventions and forms that an audience would expect to look for.

Using these kinds of software's and cameras to what the actual music industry use

By using these software's Adobe Premier Pro and Adobe Photoshop we can challenge the forms of other music videos and attempt to create a successful video and promotional material with home use software's and not the expensive high technology industry standard software's. For emerging artists this is one of the ways in which we have to start out to become successful unless we have the money to buy a lot more advanced software.

 Artists are now using their own experiences, stories and memories to win over the popularity of the audience, to make their video more interested and to get a personal and important message across. Many artists do this and have been doing for years. This helps for an audience to relate to that video and also spread the message. We are challenging the music videos on relationships, that some people's relationship problems may not be as great as others; here our character has lost her boyfriend in the army, in death. This may raise comments on how this relationship is more important than others and how its message is more personal and that it matters to thousands of people in the world, their husbands, fiancés, boyfriends leaving families and children behind.

Katy Perry created a song on The One That Got Away, based on her relationship with Russell Brand, they are not together anymore but the song as elements that her and Russell Brand did together and shows how artists now are creating songs influenced by events in their own life.

Although Russell Brand as not died it shows how Russell was the one that got away, she wanted to be with him and should of saved the relationship while she still could.

The promotion material is one of the most important factors, it must catch an audience's eye and make them want to know more about the artist and who they are, wanting to listen to their music and watch their videos to see if they are good. A buyer in a CD store needs to be attracted to the cover, need to draw their eye to the CD, with the help of the Digi pack this may also help with the representation of the artist and the audience will look at how they look, what their fashion style is, might reflect on what their music and videos look like.

The ability for an artist to appear in their video and be a character shows off their skills and assets. They can show how they can take on a role of a character, with inspiration and help from their music, their vision of the message behind the music and the music video (what they want it to look like and sound like etc) Artists such as Russell Brand have appeared in Movies such as Get Him To The Greek and Forgetting Sarah Marshall that feature songs that he as created for those movies.