Overall our audiences very much liked our choice to keep the performance footage monochrome with splashes of red colour isolated within the monochrome scheme which was found reminiscent of blood in splatters. A common criticism is that the lip syncing, the singing and the music were a little out of time but overall the video was good.
The content of the video showed a 'deep meaning' and was not 'showy' but 'down to earth' and so did resemble a real folk rock video. Switching from the video clips to the singers was done well, although the pace of the video didn't always build up with the pace of the music but overall the editing and cutting back and forth was done well.
The Digipak and poster were done well, the artists portrayed well in the video, 'humble, down to earth, more to do with their music, not a flashy video, really made you listen to their music, important'. The Digipak and video went well it wasn't like two different kinds of images being used. There are close ups of the artists in the video and their posture in the video makes them instantly recognisable from the poster and the CD if you were looking for them in a shop. The video showed the sentimental side of war well, showed a lot of fighting but the music managed to portray our point of view well that it was a sad loss the death of so many, and it was used well with stock footage of women crying.
The way we shot our own footage was consistent in the style of the stock footage and didn't jump out as out of place. The narrative scenes though simple were understood by the audience, showing a pensive man symbolising his reflecting on all the things that had happened. Respondent found it refreshing to have a meaningful video that made you think as opposed to one that made you want to get up dancing and she'd want to listen to it again. The ship and the thorns and the name went well together, clever, and all linked from one production to the next, the poster colours were consistent and stylistic, creative and simple, imaginative, very arty.
What was appealing to them and they thought would appeal to others is the colour scheme, the 'deep' meaningful theme which was refreshing as opposed to something such as dance music, and the close up shots of the guitar emphasising the focus on the music. Overall respondents also liked the consistency of the pattern with the sea of thorns going across the panels, the way the band were sitting on them but that the artists didn’t seem like they were posing but very natural, the Digipak layout was very clear. The poster, looking head on straight at the camera was nice, no nonsense, and that the clothes were casual so you could take them seriously and something else like spiky dyed hair would have been out of place, serious expressions and black and yellow stood out in the design, and the ship’s consistency across designs were nice, and you’d instantly link the poster and Digipak together in a shop.
To conclude I learned from my audience feedback that all in all, the editing was good despite the apparent quality of camera (which was because Youtube wouldn't allow us to upload a full quality .dv file but only an inferior quality web streaming file; this will be remedied by viewing the music video on the DVD disc), the theme of war and the sacrifices made through it was conveyed successfully through our music video, the poster and Digipak were clear, consistent in design and style and appealed to our target audience.
However if we were to make this video again, it would be advised for our band members to be directed to be more enthusiastic and not as relaxed as they were as they seemed a little 'slouchy' and unfortunately the singing was not always in time with the music. Next time though our setting was filled with nature, a setting with more obvious nature and not such plain surroundings could be used - a farm was suggested, a more practical idea may be a beach, or by the river. Furthermore next time despite using a natural setting we should not be dependent on natural lighting, which could have been better as said by a respondent, so next time we should bring portable lights with us while filming if possible.
Sunday, 12 February 2012
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Monday, 6 February 2012
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In all my blogs, research, planning, construction and evaluation: Slideshare was used throughout the project to upload Word documents of the script and as well as our general work on PowerPoint files. This was useful as it meant that group based work could be more easily shared by using the embed code, and as an alternative to USB keys making sure there was somewhere secure to store continuous copies of our work as we went along somewhere online that would accessible from both school and home networks.
In the construction of our music video: We used a Panasonic HD camera to film the video. This was an upgrade from the standard MiniDV 250 camera which we had used the year before, and the quality was noticeable in the footage we had when uploaded onto the camera and viewed through iMovie HD – it was also used to take stills of our video in the making and behind the scenes to show our construction in our project.
A group photobucket was created with a custom URL to make it easier to remember where we had stored our work at photobucket.com/forkingandcountry. I found this site useful in uploading the stills of the video in the making to the construction blog, and to upload the stock footage used where it was accessible to everyone online from home, school, etc. I also posted the location shots on here and made a slide show of it to put on my research blog.
Youtube was used to research different music videos in the folk rock genre, to take screenshots of and help in the analysis of the genre. I also found Pitchfork.com to be helpful in researching different album covers, both front and backs, which was essential in the Digipak research and analysis to help in the formation of our own Digipak. I also used Youtube for my evaluation blog as iMovie HD was being extremely slow to load or sync files, I used Youtube to use the mac's own webcam to record the people for my audience feedback speaking to the camera.
In my research blog: I used the sound recorder program on my Windows Vista to record audio clips in place of written work in some instances e.g. analysing the results of the target audience research. I then uploaded the audio files to Dropbox.com in the public folder so it would be open to anyone to listen, and linked the files in a blogger post. This was done as unfortunately I found in embedding the audio file as it was to listen to on the blog would either not show up, or start automatically no matter how I changed the code – and this was a problem as I had more than one audio clip, so I chose to link them via Dropbox instead.
The program iMovieHD was used to edit the video and I found it extremely helpful in the construction of our video. It was more convenient as it was suited to the Mac computers that we were using, and had a wide variety of effects for the video which we found useful i.e. the colour editing so that the guitar and leaves of the footage would be red, the sepia tone of the narrative footage, the speed and pacing effects, the audio splicing and so on which all helped to keep the music and footage in sync as well as be presented the way we wanted it.
The most useful thing in the construction of the video whilst I did the sound editing was that I could adjust the audio levels of sound and pitch, making sure by making them louder in quiet parts and easing the end of the song quietly into a gradual end. Another useful thing I found was that for parts of our performance footage where the singer wasn't singing entirely in synch, the speed could be altered on iMovie HD to slow him down so that the shape of his mouth would match the words that were being sung on the mp3 which helped the continuity in our music video overall.
I used SoundCloud to upload audio clips of myself speaking for my target audience research analysis in my planning blog. For some reason although I was able to embed audio clips straight into blogger with code last year, this year the code would not work properly and kept starting automatically. I researched many different codes and sites e.g. myflashfetish to put in my audio clips and had almost given up and just put in links to the audio clips when I finally discovered SoundCloud at the last minute which was incredibly helpful to break up all the text I had on my blog with a different form.
I used Dropbox throughout my research, construction, planning and evaluation stages by uploading my voice clips onto it for safe keeping while I tried to find a way to embed them onto blogger as well as general files, e.g. the mp3 file For King and Country so that the original file without being edited wouldn't be lost. If something went wrong whilst doing the sound editing in iMovie HD then I could always go back to my documents saved on Dropbox and find the saved mp3 and download it again, reversing any potential mistakes. Slideshare on many occasions would upload files too slowly so I often used Dropbox to upload any necessary powerpoint files or screenshots so I could continue the work I did in classes at home.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
During our production of our video, we created our own ancillary texts in order to complement the video: our Digipak, and our magazine advert. These were also made in order to help further sell our band and product to audiences.
We chose to make a Digipak to help encourage sales of our band’s CD as opposed to just buying the digital tracks, or resorting to illegal downloading. This way instead of having an impersonal, dull single leaflet holding a CD they get a Digipak which has more personal information about the artists to help the fans feel closer to them, interesting artwork and design to own. This effect was built upon by having our final panel of the Digipak have photos of the making of our video of the album’s key song ‘For King & Country’ in a show reel. These things in the Digipak cannot be found online and do not come with the digital tracks, and so by buying these it helps the fan feel more connected with the band, and give insight into their lives and work.
For the front cover, we played on their name ‘Jamie Thorn & The Mystery Pacific’ and joined their meaning by having a sea of thorns on the front cover. In keeping with the nautical theme, a pirate ship was displayed next to the band name floating on top of the sea of thorns – this also kept the convention of having nature within the art design of the Digipak, and nature in the video as we filmed in a field keeping the band close to nature. This design was kept consistent by also having the ship featured on the magazine advert, reminiscent to the audience of the ‘sea of thorns’ on the Digipak. The advert design also had the same font for the band name as did the Digipak - in this way our Digipak and advert design were made very similar, so that when shopping in stores for our band’s CD it would be quickly recognized from the advert design.
In editing our music video all footage of the band was high stylized, made largely black and white except for parts where the guitar or the leaves were emphasized by being highlighted in red. This was kept consistent with our advert where the image of the band is highly stylized, the photo edited to look more like art with a more cartoon-like feel. Although the video is mostly greyscale with only hints of colour, we chose to use bolder colours in the advert to draw attention and catch the eye of passersby, and also as it would be in tune with the conventions of other posts which are full of vibrant colours e.g. Bon Iver. The main portrait photo used of our band on both our Digipak and our advert is one where they are dressed in a manner conventional of the typical folk rock artist; their clothes are kept simple in dark colours, leather jacket and hoodie.
They are not depicted as particularly interested in glamour as indicated by their casual dress, showing them to be humble and their solemn expressions show they are serious, introspective and thinking about the music – this is a common convention of the depiction of folk rock artists, as can be seen in Bon Iver, Laura Marling, and Iron & Wine whenever their artists are seen. The band gazing straight towards the camera shows they want to reach out to their audiences, their posture and expression helping the audience feel more connected to the band. Themes of introspection, simplicity and humbleness are kept similar throughout our video, Digipak and advert, creating a consistent atmosphere of feeling.
Final Digipak - Jamie Thorn and The Mystery Pacific
View more PowerPoint from Yazzee
We chose to make a Digipak to help encourage sales of our band’s CD as opposed to just buying the digital tracks, or resorting to illegal downloading. This way instead of having an impersonal, dull single leaflet holding a CD they get a Digipak which has more personal information about the artists to help the fans feel closer to them, interesting artwork and design to own. This effect was built upon by having our final panel of the Digipak have photos of the making of our video of the album’s key song ‘For King & Country’ in a show reel. These things in the Digipak cannot be found online and do not come with the digital tracks, and so by buying these it helps the fan feel more connected with the band, and give insight into their lives and work.
For the front cover, we played on their name ‘Jamie Thorn & The Mystery Pacific’ and joined their meaning by having a sea of thorns on the front cover. In keeping with the nautical theme, a pirate ship was displayed next to the band name floating on top of the sea of thorns – this also kept the convention of having nature within the art design of the Digipak, and nature in the video as we filmed in a field keeping the band close to nature. This design was kept consistent by also having the ship featured on the magazine advert, reminiscent to the audience of the ‘sea of thorns’ on the Digipak. The advert design also had the same font for the band name as did the Digipak - in this way our Digipak and advert design were made very similar, so that when shopping in stores for our band’s CD it would be quickly recognized from the advert design.
In editing our music video all footage of the band was high stylized, made largely black and white except for parts where the guitar or the leaves were emphasized by being highlighted in red. This was kept consistent with our advert where the image of the band is highly stylized, the photo edited to look more like art with a more cartoon-like feel. Although the video is mostly greyscale with only hints of colour, we chose to use bolder colours in the advert to draw attention and catch the eye of passersby, and also as it would be in tune with the conventions of other posts which are full of vibrant colours e.g. Bon Iver. The main portrait photo used of our band on both our Digipak and our advert is one where they are dressed in a manner conventional of the typical folk rock artist; their clothes are kept simple in dark colours, leather jacket and hoodie.
They are not depicted as particularly interested in glamour as indicated by their casual dress, showing them to be humble and their solemn expressions show they are serious, introspective and thinking about the music – this is a common convention of the depiction of folk rock artists, as can be seen in Bon Iver, Laura Marling, and Iron & Wine whenever their artists are seen. The band gazing straight towards the camera shows they want to reach out to their audiences, their posture and expression helping the audience feel more connected to the band. Themes of introspection, simplicity and humbleness are kept similar throughout our video, Digipak and advert, creating a consistent atmosphere of feeling.
Friday, 3 February 2012
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
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