Commentary Video

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.