Advanced Portfolio: January 2018

click here to enter CAN'T SLEEP WEBSITE

We created the website via the software Wix. This online software was really good and enabled us to produce a high standard finished website. It allowed us to add all different pages and links to the website and enabled us to edit it easily from anywhere.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?

HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH,PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

At the start of December 2917, we completed our first draft of our music video.

Our first draft was only 3 minutes long and did not have many effects included. We presented our first draft to the class and were given feedback from our classmates and our teachers. This feedback consisted of:

"Shots of Phoebe going crazy could be broken up with some quick (sped-up) shots in between"

"Could sharpen some parts"

"Some editing needs to be cut more suddenly with the music"

"Needs more shots of Lucy|"

AND

"Good TV effect"

"First effect looks good - really trippy"

"Characterisation + acting was perfect"

"Transitions between each shot flows - ghosting effect matches trippy theme"

From the feedback we received we were able to make changes to the video accordingly. We used an effect called edge feather which sharpened the video - especially on the TV scenes. We also decided to add in split second black screens which fit in time with the music. and we held more filming sessions with Lucy and added this footage into the final music video. The feedback was really helpful because it allowed us the knowledge of knowing that what we had created was good and of a high standard, but also allowed us to add changes which improved our final video.

We were really pleased with our final video.We thought that the feedback was really helpful and allowed us to improve our video greatly. If we were to go back and ask for feedback again, I think we would create a short survey with specific questions on what people wanted us to improve on.

We decided we wanted to get feedback from our final video so we created a couple surveys which I handed out to my A-Level media class and they filled them in. The first survey was a pre-video survey.

We decided to ask these questions to determine if our Target Audience was right. These pre - video surveys worked really well. It allowed us to realise that people within our target audience bracket (teenage girls), their music tastes were very varied. But this survey allowed us to know that our type of music would be well received within our target audience because of the variation and the style of music videos they like.

After the class filled out the surveys, they watched the video:

After they watched the clip, we got the class to fill out a post-video survey:

We got mainly got good feedback which showed us a realistic reaction to our video.

We also decided to do a individual interview with one of our classmates. We decided to interview a fellow media student because they know the conventions of our genre and can provide informed feedback.

OUR WEBSITE

Before we started creating our website we carried our someresearch into other websites so we could see how other artisits create band images and synergy throughout their websites. The main website we looked at were the Slaves website:

This was the first draft of our website. On this design we used images taken from our photoshoots for the background.and kept this throughout the website.The images we used were kaleidoscope pictures because we thought it would keep the synergy throughout the video and website. We showed the first draft to ou class and got feedback from them:

Do you want Lucy on the homepage?, too much kaleidoscope imagery, possibly more artist information added, quite dark,

Put interviews on too, possibly add a small biography, make the links stand out more to make it easier for the user to navigate

These are some pages from our finished website. Because of this feedback, we decided to create the whole website again. We decided to change the theme of the website from kaleidoscope

images to a plain pink background throughout the whole website. We choose the colour pink to reflect the pink set we used therefore keeping up the synergy and band image. It also made the website more aesthetically pleasing and easier to read and use. We also added a bio about the band and added more pages such as News page and Video page which contains interviews and behind the scenes footage.

We got feedback from our class which consisted of:

*Really good synergy links to your other media products

*Really easy to navigate around the website

*All tabs work

*Like the motion of the logo when you first click on it - good interactivity

*Good use of your images and digipak pictures and video snippets throughout the website

*Layout good

*Gallery shows good images

*News section gives good, useful information

We also created a survey - using survey monkey

We sent the survey out to other student to gain their feedback on the finished website.

The feedback we received was:

*Easy navigation

*Good merch

*All links worked

*Looked really nice

OUR DIGIPAK

We had to create a digipak that fitted our genre themes and should the band images clearly.

This is our first draft:

The overall feedback we got was positive, with it being no9ted that it is unique and attention grabbing. One suggestion was to tint the bottom left photo pink in order to better match the other photos. Our peers liked the grainy effect. Another suggestion was to try and incorporate glitter into it and for us to add borders, a song list and the title of the album. From this feedback we were able to edit our digipak to produce a better product:

OUR MAGAZINE COVER

We created the magazine cover on a website called Canva. From the research we did, we decided to make the magazine on OffBeat magazine,

This is our first draft of our magazine:

The feedback we got from this was:

*Make Luicy's image stronger - take out the red eye and brighten her

*Make the background less grungy

*Make the text look more proffessional

*Add a barcode

Influenced by our magazine we also made a tour poster:

And a debut album launch poster:

Script for Question 1

When creating a music video, there are rules to follow and rules you can bend to fit your creative viewpoint. A music video must be representative of the mood conveyed by the song you are creating it around, and tell a story influenced by the lyrics. This story can be told very literally by linking certain words to images onscreen (insert clips of girli/tdcc) or it can have a more metaphorical kind of feel and tell a story that may only loosely link to the actual lyrics.

Our video took a fairly literal approach in some aspects, with certain words linking to the lyrics, and some key phrases from the song being shown in the background (insert clips). This aspect of our video was influenced by the theories of Carol Vernallis, who said a key element of a music video was to link the lyrics to the images shown. However, on the most part, our video is more conceptual than literal, with our main goal being to create a visual that matched the sound and feel of the song rather than a full narrative.

During planning for our video, we watched a lot of music videos which each provided us with some kind of inspiration, whether it be colour scheme, certain shots or editing techniques.

Alongside multiple indie-rock artists, we took a lot of inspiration from the punk-rock duo Slaves, particularly from the video for their song “The Hunter”. We took note of the heightened colours, grainy feel and the confrontational, almost aggressive way in which they perform, and applied this to our video. Reflecting Slaves, we decided to base the characterisation off of their performances, filming a lot of close-ups with intense eye-contact and a slightly deranged energy.

We had the idea to use a kaleidoscope effect in the very first shot to establish our video as colourful and psychedelic, which is also shown in Gerard Way’s video for his song “No Shows”. Similarly, to Slaves, this video uses a grainy effect to create a vintage aesthetic.

A shot we tried to replicate was a transition shot in King Krule’s video for Half Man Half Shark – the camera is shown to focus on an object then pan down quickly, almost like it was being dropped – we really liked how seamlessly this lead one shot to another and felt a little bit more chaotic as opposed to your average fade or jump-cut transition. (compare shots – 1.07 of the KK video, blowing glitter of CS video).

Another video which inspired some shots, editing style and the set itself was the video for Season 2 Episode 3 by Glass Animals – this video shows a girl lounging on a sofa in a messy living room, covered in various miscellaneous objects – this includes food, cigarettes, cacti and clothes. We created our own version of this set which we felt suited the slightly edgier character of Coco, but used the same basis of it being a messy room with the sofa as the central focus. I threw some lighters, CDs, magazines and wrappers on the floor and took various side-panning shots of those. In terms of editing, I used the same quick cuts between shots of Phoebe, or Coco, eating, drinking and generally lounging about.

For Lucy’s scenes, we watched a lot of videos where a girl is the main performer, so this included Wolf Alice’s Yuk Foo video, Kill V Maim by Grimes and Black Honey’s live videos. Black Honey are the actual band behind our song, so we found it really helpful watching how their singer, Izzy B Philips performed the song herself.

In terms of shots, we drew inspiration from two door cinema club and slaves again, due to the very close-up shots of the main artist. We also originally wanted to use a go-pro for Lucy’s scenes to get the same kind of fish-eye lens effect, but decided to just use a normal DLSR camera instead.

We decided to keep to some of the conventions of the stereotypical “indie” video and do live performance scenes throughout the video – this is shown in videos such as Kathleen by catfish and the bottlemen, yuk foo by wolf alice and out getting ribs by king krule.

(insert clips from slaves, grimes, s2 ep3, Gerard way with comparative shots alongside). While we consider our video to be quite unique in terms of the narrative and mise en scene, it definitely fits very well into the indie category of videos and doesn’t challenge conventions very much at all. The same goes for our digipak and website, which both follow a clear brand image and display the pink, bold, kaleidoscopic imagery shown throughout all our ancillary texts. Our website has a simple structure and uses photos and colours to fit in with our themes, as does the digipak which links directly into the music video by using photos from the filming sets, bright colours and a vintage-style television on the front cover.

Voice over - Question 1

Script - Question 3 - Plan

During filming our predominant choice of camera was a Sony Cybershot HX300 – this allowed us to get clear footage quality at 720p and 50x optical zoom, which came in handy for close-ups, which we used a lot. This camera was used to film both of our scenes, with the footage being saved onto a 16gb memory card and downloaded onto the computer via a flash drive which allowed a memory card to be inserted into it. We saved our footage in the media drive and Lucy’s files in order to ensure we had it available in two file locations should any footage somehow become corrupted. In addition to the DSLR camera, we also used iPhone 6 and 7 cameras to film our glass bottle smashing and our interview. We found the iPhone camera quality was good enough to provide clear footage of the glass bottle shards and glitter - while the iPhone 7 footage was unable to be used, the footage Lucy filmed on her iPhone 6 was successfully implemented into various sections of our video. These shots were uploaded to the computer via a USB cable connected directly to Lucy’s iPhone, saved into a file named “glass videos” in order to clearly separate and label the footage.

We utilised social media in order to promote and strengthen our brand image and communicate with “fans”. We found that musical artists often share their latest news and updates via twitter, Facebook and Instagram. While we didn’t feel our target audience would be as present on facebook, we decided it was vital to create twitter and Instagram accounts and post on them as our characters Bea and Coco. We shared images taken onset and sneak peeks at clips from the video, which artists often do in order to create hype for upcoming events or videos. This is shown on synth-pop duo Empire Of The Sun’s Instagram, which posted behind-the-scenes photos and small clips of an upcoming music video.

Websites and programmes used in the music video process include CANVA, Wix, Photoshop and of course Adobe Premiere.

CANVA was used to create our tour date poster, magazine cover and advertising poster. This was a fairly easy programme to use as it involved choosing a layout and fitting in your own images and text to suit the design you wanted. Phoebe edited our magazine cover on Photoshop after creating it on CANVA, and used a variety of tools in order to make the image look more professional – this included using the burn effect in order to darken the background and highlight Lucy as the main subject, minus red eye to reduce the effects of the camera flash and the sponge effect to brighten Lucy and make her the main focus.

Although Wix has templates available, Phoebe created the website entirely from scratch, choosing to create an original design, as she felt none of the templates suited the image we wanted to promote our band with. The website carries our synergy through, with a bright pink background, kaleidoscopic imagery and photos taken onset. It has mulitple pages to click on, including a home page, merchandise, tour dates and a gallery. These all work together to promote our band image and give enough information to create a proffessional looking website.

Adobe Premiere Pro was the programme we used to edit our video, and it allowed us to fully create the video we wanted and make it look as accurate to our plans and ideas as possible. While we had previously used basic Premiere skills for other tasks, making this music video allowed us to be even more creative with effects and layering footage. We learnt new editing skills along the way, as I mentioned, how to layer one piece of footage on top another – we learnt this specifically so we would be able to create the illusion that the scenes filmed in the pink room were playing on the television used in the living room scenes. While there could have been a away for us to actually play that footage on the television, the camera would have picked up static and reflection from the glass screen itself, which would have looked shoddy and unprofessional. In order to layer the footage, I placed one clip on top of the other, cropped it to -13 either side and used the effcts “Roughen Edges” and “Edge Feather”. These allowed the layered clip to blend seamlessly into the clip below, giving it the look of actually being on the television.

In addition to these effects, we used Colour Balance, Brightness and Contrast and changed the speed of some clips in order to either make them in time with the song or speed them up in a way that made the actors movements look very jarring, which we intended for certain parts of the video. This was also contributed to by reversing some pieces of footage.

We used Powerpoint to create our Digipak, as this was a programme we were both extremely comfortable with and it allowed us to do everything we needed to make our Digipak look as true to our original ideas as possible. We used the “Remove Bcakground” tool to layer part of an image over one section, and used the “Grain” and “Saturation +” effects to give each image a bright, colourful and vintage feel.

During the research and planning stages, we mainly used Blogger to document our progress, PowerPoint and Prezi to create presentations showing our ideas, feedback and general information regarding the music video. These allowed us to create posts which showed our journey to creating a fully-fledged product that we could be proud of and which linked together in terms of synergy, band image and creativity.