Evaluation Questions

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

The media product my group have created uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products. We have used the forms and conventions by considering the genre of our song and used other media products as examples to generate ideas for our video. A specific example we used to fulfil this was ‘Loick Essien – Me Without You’ as in the video it used the same effect using green screen that we wanted in ours so we used this as an almost guide to how we should frame our shots to give it the best effect with the software we had to edit the Chroma Key with.

               

We have also developed the forms and conventions of our video by using inspiration from music videos from artists such as Rihanna and the content in them and made it a simpler format which allowed us to create a video that really fits the genre conventions. We also looked at the way that the videos were structured in an almost narrative to it and we developed this idea into our video, using the picture montage as a reflection almost at the end over the progression of the song.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancilliary texts?

The combination of our main product and ancillary texts is quite good. This is down to the way we have represented the artist in both the video and digipak and magazine advert, in a way that shoes the vulnerability posed in the song. We also chose to name the digipak and magazine advert after Lady Gaga’s real name Stefani, as we thought this would show how she was before her eccentric side came out in her songs. This also fits with the genre of the song as it’s a lot different from the genre type Gaga is famed for today with its R’n’B tone to it.

The whole concept for the project was finding a way of representing Gaga how she is today and how she was when “Second Time Around” was demoed so finding a balance between the two was imperative and I think especially in the digipak and advert, we managed to do this. 

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

From our audience feedback given to us about our music video, we were alerted to a few things in the video that we should've picked up during the making. A big problem was with the Lady Gaga style sunglasses we had bought to add the bit of Gaga - esque feel to it, which was the main part to concept as we wanted to include her eccentricity, and we found that it stopped the interaction between the audience and the artist in the video so a big thing we have learnt from that is that its a really important point in the video to make sure that the artists eyes are visible as it gives that personal connection to the viewer. 

Another point that was bought up during our feedback was the way that, in some places, the lip syncing wasn't quite matching up to the music and this did affect the quality of the video so making sure that the artist in the video knows the words is really imperative and can affect how people view the video. 

A positive point we were given aswell during feedback was that the picture montages that we included in the video during the last section worked well in the video. We mainly used them to get over the emotion in the song and to make it more real and work with the genre so for people to connect to this part, it showed that the concept for it worked well. 

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

During our music video project, we have used many new media technologies. In the construction of the video, we used a Sony HD Handycam to gain our footage. I found this quite easy to use and I liked the clear, HD image we were left with after filming, which especially benfitted in our white rom shots due to the image quality being incredibly clear leaving us with a shot that look professionally lit and ended up being one of our best shots out of the lot.

                

Another technology we used for our research was Youtube. We mainly used Youtube as a source for examples of professional plus student music videos we could use to analyse and take some inspiration from but also we used it for uploading test shots we have conducted and also for our rough cut which we used to show the progress in our work and also to get feedback on. I find it an easier way of sharing work with the simple embedding process which, as another technology we have used, can be uploaded on to our blogs on blogger. Blogger is used in our projects as a way of showing research and all the different steps of the whole process during the music video. It’s a helpful way of keeping all of our research and planning in one area but can be quite time consuming writing and uploading. 

                

Furthermore, for the editing process, we have used Final Cut Express Pro which is a professional editing programme. Its helped us create the effect during the green screening that we wanted, the scenes where the background is the main street in Cambridge and also where we have our main character in the video almost overlapping in the same frame, and this enabled us to get the right sort of video connecting to the genre. 

Finally, Blogger has been a main part to our project during the planning, construction, editing and evaluating of our music video. I have found it a very helpful way to keep all of our ideas and the important planning information we have needed in the project in one place. However, sometimes it would have been helpful to have had some of the information in our hands, for example during the filming of the commentary it would have been easier to have had the scripts written out before it was put on the blog but its a very useful tool in the project. 

Problems

During the editing of the filming, the biggest problem we encountered was that of the chrome keyer; there was a clip right in the middle of the video at one point that had been given six or seven chromer keyers; this threw out the lip-syncing before we uploaded the rough cut. To resolve this we removed the clip completely and adjusted the rest of the clips from that point. What was also difficult was syncing the fades and overlapping the different Lynsey’s over themselves and having the clips from the green screen look as natural as possible; without the gaudy green glare as well as missing cheeks and patches of skin to its glare.

For the digipack we found it very difficult to get started on. At first we had this idea of “Gaga in Wonderland” but found that all the ideas were far too elaborate for fit in with our concept of stripping back.

Digipack content

Title - "LADY GAGA Stefani"
Label - Interscope Records
Platform - DVD Video
Twitter feed - @ladygaga
Website - http://www.ladygaga.com/
Tracks -
1. Second Time Around
2. XOXO
BONUS FEATURES
3. Behind the Scenes
4. Extras

Comparison of Storyboards and Final Product

 

 

Our story boards included a lot more outdoor filming than we had in our final cut; we couldn’t do this taking into account Cambridge weather so we had to give many of the proposed walking and scrolling shots a miss.

To make up for this however we used the bright, celestial looking white room to create these emotive shots, white instead of black because we thought black would make the video seem alot more cynical than it needed to be.

We still made use of the Gaga Sci-Fi glasses, and of the boyfriend conversation concepts; though it was difficult to get our actress to sing to our actor (Pat Bull) without our smiling too much for such a sorrowful song.  We also kept to the concept as using and altered speed Cambridge as a backdrop for green screening, we hoped this would create the illusion of time passing irregularly; isolating our main character.  If you look closely in the last frame ^ you can see the lion from outside the Fitzwilliam.

Director's Commentary Analysis

Above is the director's commentary for Rise Against video for Savior.
It is a fairly contemparary example, and even goes so far as to include most of the video at the beginning before going intoo its political, environmental message; everythinig n the video has some deeper concept that is revealed through this commentary. We hoped to do the same with ours, but chose to use a variety of photo stills instead of clips from our video because the fades we used then were very complex, and we felt the simplicity would make it all a bit easier to follow. Though our video isnt political, its concepts and meanings are still there and still relevant to the mass media audience we wanted to appeal to.

Directors Commentary Research

Director's commentaries are used in many media procucts; wherein the cast, crew, writers producers or directors, and maybe even historians and film critics depending on the media text.
They have been made over music videos, tv adverts, video games, internet virals, and more commonly television and film productions.
One way they are recorded; is over part of, either one scene or sequence, the product wherein the narrate would cover the concepts and goals behind important parts of the visuals.
Another method, most commonly in dvd/ film commentaries, includes a feature length narrate, speaking as the media product is played on a continuous stream.

Music Videos That Have Influenced Us (3)

To include a bit of Lady Gaga's personality and style in our video, we have looked at some of her earlier videos when she was a bit less extreme and eccentric, in a way that eased her style into to the mainstream eye and catch the essence of the video. To represent this in our video we are hoping to use the subtlety with costuming and makeup so that, even though the song was pre The Fame, we have an accurate video to the artist.

Music Videos That Have Influenced Us (2)

We also looked at JoJo's video for "Too Little Too Late" as it is also about a breakup and some of the scenes involved in the video, especially the shot where she is sitting by the window almost contemplating what happened, are like what we wanted to do for our video. Except we plan to have the singer walking and singing and gazing thoughtfully off into the distance.

Digipack Analysis

The tight framed, minimalism of the visuals can be directly affiliated with our video, even though we purposefully avoided taking images from the video for the digipak, we did however keep to a sense of strict tight framed visual structures.We included Gaga's actual record label logo as well as the conventional DVD video image.

We used the images above, taken from our actress' facebook account, because they were simple and could easily be transferred and played around with via the photoshop filters.
We took the two different fonts used from 1001freefonts.com, the "LADY GAGA" being almost robotic we chose because this reflected Gaga's 'traditional' outlandish style and contrasts well with the "Stefani" the album name which we chose because it is Gaga's real name which we hoped would reflect the sense of stripping back. The handwriting style we felt would mirror this sense of the personal touch; almost like a signature.
We also decided to include an extra track we named "XOXO" symbolising the text symbols for "hugs and kisses" we thought it would be a nice contrast to the solemn break up song.

Magazine Advert Analysis

 This is our final of our magazine advert it stands out from most magazine adverts out there it is edge and shows the artist well telling you who the artist is but not fiting them to one thing specific to them it has nice complementing colours the are different to what is usually used it has all the elements to what an advert should have our infulences for this idea were the lady gaga adverts and covers for cd that are out now and the madonna cd covers. we took the image from the actresses facebook page as we felt th images we found worked well

Analysis of Older Students Magazine Advert

I liked the text font used for the name of the band, I felt it reflects the Indie vibe of the song as well as the band
I dislike the badly proportioned photos and their lack of connection; I feel the group would have been better off had they had a photo shoot or not taken images from their actual video.
The information is all there though maybe the price of the digipack wasn't required.

Analysis Of Old Student Digi Pack

I like the lay out of the images and how the lyics to the song is in the digi pack in an unusual style it is different to most others. i feel they could have tried to fit it more to the real bands style and genre of being fun but done it in awaythat they would not be copying, but over all i think the digi pack works really well and looks smart.

Use of narrative/ abstract/ performance in your video

Our video does refer to some kind of narrative; wherein our actress and actor had a relationship and is called in to question by the lyrics of the shown, we tried to represent this through our use of montage stills of the two together as well as having our actor's face in a tight frame for some of the video.
Most of the video is quite abstract; through the lack of any real acting other than lip syncing, we hoped to evoke concepts such as time moving faster with our green screening and our link to the original artist Gaga with the use of the Sci- Fi Glasses.

Magazine Advert Photos

for our magazine advert we were going to choose between these two photos in the end we went for the top one and editied it slightly in photoshop to make it different to any other but so it still fitted in with the theme and genre

Expectations and Conventions of A Digipak

This includes codes and conventions of a digipak and what would be needed to make a professional and realistic representation. Usually photographs, band information etc. the majority of digipaks are created for special or limited edition disks and DVD's of gigs/concerts.
- Visuals are key to the production - Includes images of the artist/band, shots from concerts, instruments, etc.
- List of songs included, or if for a DVD scene selection
- Band/ artist name and album title, making the brand easily identified. Can be included along the spine and on main cover.
- Basic information about the artist/band - background information, type of music, etc.
- Reviews from newspapers - Good reviews are often printed on the back cover to encourage sales and marketing.

Conventions of a Magazine Advert

- The release date
- Place of purchase
- Image of the DigiPak cover/ logo/ band symbol/ prominent image
- Artist's name
- Record Label
- Reviews
- Genre of band reflected in text/ colour/ font/ images
- Use of new media (e.g. twitter links)
- Persuasive/ Eye Catching text/ images

Digi Pack Photos

the top two photo were used on our digi pack as we felt they fit the ideas and genre of the artist and the song compareed to the other three pictures as they were more silly and had more in the image other than just the artist.

Target Audience Research

We want to aim the video at a teenage/young people market due to the nature of the song and the genre of it as they can relate to the events that happen in it. 16-25 is the is the most commonly targeted of the audiences because most people of this age have access to social messaging sites, watch the most tv and buy the most music; in short they are the most influential of customers.
Because of our lack of Voyeurisms, it is more likely that we will have a more female market; those whom can empathise with the song as well as the artists values.

Analysis Of Student Music Videos - Mayday

 

Song : Tenbucks - Mayday


The video demonstrates obvious traits of Indie and Rock videos; shown by simple costuming, the minimalistic guitar and spray can props and the baron locations, as well as the stage performance and general natural outdoors vibe.

The relationship between the lyrics and visuals are amplifying, there is only one obvious character, a girlfriend is implied but never specified, and as for the title no one seems to be dying enough to qualify use of the term "Mayday"

The relationship between the music and visuals are much more illustrative; the pace of both is slow and the guitar in the song matches the movements of the player in the video.

There are plenty of close ups and costume changes to suit the demands of the record label, also the vandalism of the heart adds to the sense of heartbreak and Indie people doing crazy things in love, also the rock star life allows them to get away with it.

Evaluation of Music Video Project

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

The video, I thought, mimicked the likes of Rihanna and Loick Essien's music video styles - green screening, plain backgrounds and single artist narrative and visuals, I thought we used our own single artist narrative worked well considering the amount of time and money we had for this video.
I feel the lack of Gaga-esk dance number would create an emotive atmosphere, as well as the sparseness of some the backgrounds; though we tried to conform a little to a sense of Gaga style through our Sci -fi glasses prop choice (£15 inc. p&p amazon) through stripping back we've developed the idea in such a way that challenges the commercial cinematic music video; intending to make the final product purely about how the artist feels and the isolation, sorrow and regret that that entails.
We chose to make our video quite basic because we believed in the case of this song simplicity is key to create and effective and coherent narrative and also that because this specific track was written before Gaga's 2008 debut album 'The Fame';  we decided that our rendition of 'Second Time Around' should reflect this sense of stripping back. We hoped to symbolize this sense of nature and class through using conventionally British green screen backgrounds of places in and around Cambridge; to the mass media this would create a feel of other worldly-ness and the unknown, something that I felt suited the Gaga sensibilities also, and that I felt we achieved.
It is also with these decisions to that we challenge the conventions of all other Gaga videos. Even our ancillary dvd cover we dubbed 'Stefani' links back to the artists real name; Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.

Unlike regular R&B videos; our lacks the conventional jump-cuts, instead we used complicated greenscreen overlapping fades because of the nature of the song. These effects were time consuming, and there was alot of problems caused by some of them, althought the finished effect was worth it. Also our lack of voyeurism, because we have a female artists, were caused by our tight-framed shots and 'in vogue' clothing.

How Effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?


The combination of main product and ancillary texts is fairly strong; it fits well with the conventions of advertising the artist in manner that creates depth and reflects our goals of stripping back the glamour.

Because the ancillary texts focus strongly on the artist; the tight framed, minimalism of the visuals can be directly affiliated with our video, even though we purposefully avoided taking images from the video for the digipak and magazine ad, we did however keep to a sense of strict tight framed visual structures.
With the digipak and magazine ad I essentially flattened the images we had of our actress, the wonderful Lynsey Smith, by using the notepad and pop art features on Adobe photoshop filters to great effect. The contrast in colours, and the bold simplistic approach to how we presented our artist, demands attention in such a way that reflects Gaga herself.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We were told our choices of camera angle and visuals went well with the themes of the song, the photo stills were effective, that we could have made a better connection with the artist had we seen more of her eyes and that our lip syncing could have gone better.
Had we the chance to go back we could include a transition of some sort to include the eyes, maybe the actress putting on the glasses or taking them off; putting up a shield or revealing her vulnerability.
Unfortunately some of our lip syncing did go awry during conversion to Quicktime.

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

We used blogger, we used this to document what we had done and the processes we used it throughout the process of producing a video and advertising it.
Photoshop was used to make the digipack and magazine advert. This was good to use as it enabled us to create the ancillary texts exactly how we wanted to, focussing on the artist and edited to be something that would stand out but fit with the conventions.

We used final cut for all our editing, it was quick and easy to use to help us get all our editing done in time. We did get our lip-syncing done and to good standard but when we transferred it to quick time the lip-syncing went out half way through. A problem we have since fixed on our latest version which has been uploaded onto the blog.
The HD cameras were used for filming, they were good to use because they made the video look more professional, as well as giving a crisp high definition picture, which helped when we came to use green screening.

Music Video Evaluation

Final Finished Video

Magazine Advert

Digipack

Script For Video Commentary

Conventions of the R&B Genre


- We mimicked the likes of Rihanna and Loick Essien's music video styles - green screening, plain backgrounds and single artist narrative and visuals

- We hoped to create an emotive atmosphere through the sparseness of some the backgrounds and lack of Gaga-esk dance number; though we tried to conform a little to a sense of Gaga style through our Sci -fi glasses prop choice.
-through stripping back we've developed the idea in such a way that challenges the commercial cinematic music video; intending to make the final product purely abot how the artist feels and the isolation, sorrow and regret that that entails.

- We chose to make our video quite basic because we believed in the case of this song simplictiy is key to create and effective and coherent narrative and also that because this specific track was written before Gaga's 2008 debut album 'The Fame' ;
-
We hoped to symbolize this sense of nature and class through using conventionally British green screen backgrounds of places in and around cambridge; to the mass media this would create a feel of other worldly-ness and the unknown

- It is also with these decisions to that we challenge the conventions of all other Gaga videos. Even our ancillary dvd cover we dubbed 'Stefani' links back to the artists real name; Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.

-Unlike regular R&B videos; our lacks the conventional jump-cuts, instead we used complicated greenscreen overlapping fades because of the nature of the song. Also our lack of voyuerism, because we have a female artists, were caused by our tight-framed shots and 'in vogue' clothing.

Effect of the combination of our Main Product and Ancillary Texts


- We feel the combination of main product and ancillary texts is fairly strong; it fits well with the conventions of advertising the artist in manner that creates depth and reflects our goals of stripping back the glamour.

- Because the ancillary texts focus strongly on the artist; the tight framed, minimalism of the visuals can be directly affiliated with our video, even though we purposefully avoided taking images from the video for the digipak and magazine ad, we did however keep to a sense of strict tight framed visual structures.


Audience Feedback

 - we were told our choices of camera angle and visuals went well with the themes of the song, the photo stills were effective, that we could have made a better connection with the artist had we seen more of her eyes and that our lip syncing could have gone better.

- had we the chance to go back we could include a transition of some sort to include the eyes, maybe the actress putting on the glasses or taking them off; putting up a shield or revealing her vulnerability.

- unfortunately some of our lip syncing did go awry during conversion to Quicktime.

New Technologies

-We used blogger, we used this to document what we had done and the processes we used it throughout the process of producing a video and advertising it.

- Photoshop was used to make the digipack and magazine advert. This was good to use as it enabled us to create the ancillary texts exactly how we wanted to, focussing on the artist and edited to be something that would stand out but fit with the conventions.

-We used final cut for all our editing, it was quick and easy to use to help us get all our editing done in time. We did get our lip-syncing done and to good standard but when we transferred it to quick time the lip-syncing went out half way through.

-The HD cameras were used for filming, they were good to use because they made the video look more professional.

Evaluation Questions and Answers for Directors Commentery

1. Our media product has used forms and conventions from a real product by focussing on the artist throughout the video with tight framing and close ups to help sell the song. The poster and digipack also use this as it is a convention of R&B/pop like with Rihanna's videos. She was our main influence while making our video, digipack and poster. We made it our own by giving it a more british setting as Cambridge. This challenges the normal conventions of an R&B artist as you would expect a more glamerous city as you would expect a more glamorous city to help create emotive shots.


2. The combination of main text and ancillary texts is fairly strong the video is packed with tight angular shots of the artist full of motion. It fits well with the conventions helping to advertise the artist. The ancillary texts also focus strongly on the artist. It is all tight frames singling out the artist focussing on her help sell the song. Showing all her feelings and emotions for the person she is singing about. Ancillary texts has all the detail needed in the text and stands out with all the well edited stills.


3. We have learned from our audience feedback that we need to make sure the lip-syncing is more precise, as halfway through the video it goes slightly out of sync. Our idea of the montage of photos is nice. We had this to show the past memories she had and how they are now fading. The audience felt this went well and could clearly see what we were trying to achieve. The close ups were good and they had unusual framing of her face that fitted with the genre and conventions showing the artist advertising the song.


4. We used technology such as blogger, we used this to inform about what we had done and the processes we used it throughout the process of producing a video and advertising it. I liked using this because we more able to work from home or anywhere else with internet access. Photoshop was used to make the digipack and magazine advert. This was good to use as it enabled us to create the ancillary texts exactly how we wanted to, focussing on the artist and edited to be something that would stand out but fit with the conventions. We used final cut for all our editing, it was quick and easy to use to help us get all our editing done in time. We did get our lip-syncing done and to good standard but when we transferred it to quick time the lip-syncing went out half way through. The HD cameras were used for filming, they were good to use because they made the video look more professional.