Showing posts with label John. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John. Show all posts
Friday, 11 December 2009
Evaluation
Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I think that our music video is a good one for the indie genre. This is because it is different to the typical indie music video as they normally are based around a performance, with a bit of a storyline going on in the background. However we thought we could contrast this and did our music video based around the performance, with a bit of performance in there as well. We thought of an idea which was fairly similar to the Lily Allen video of ‘LDN’. However, instead of the one main character walking around with everything changing around them we would show a change in a nerdy boys life as to what set of clothes he is wearing. So for example when he is dressed in one set of clothes he would be the nerdy kid with the ordinary life. But when his clothes change he turns into the popular, trendy kid who people like. The video emphasises the change in one boys life when he is the normal/nerdy kid he has an uninteresting life and isn’t seemed as being ‘cool’. But when he is in the change of clothes and has the hat on, he becomes cool and is seen to be a famous singer who people want to be. This challenges the typical conventions of indie genre music videos as they normally consist of performance or a storyline based around being at a party or being in trouble etc. The ‘nerdy’ character also challenges the typical look in an indie music video. This is because he is seen in ‘uncool’ clothes, drives a moped and plays on guitar hero. Whereas the other side of him dresses cool, drives a car and can sing and actually play guitar which is the stereotypical appearance in a video for this genre of song. When we edited our video we added in colour filters, so when it was the ‘nerdy’ character we made it darker and for the cool side we made the colours brighter and more vibrant. We did this because people who did not know the storyline which we had planned might not have understood what was going on if we hadn’t and might’ve just seen it as a mixed up story with no real plot going on in it. For our Digipak and magazine advert we decided to just use the normal, expected type of content, this was because if people were to see the magazine advert with a quirky picture on it, they would not understand what type of music it was and they would maybe not want to buy it quite so much. So we played a bit safe on this side of our project and just made sure we could make something that is seen as a typical product.
How effective is your main product and ancillary texts?
For our two ancillary tasks we had to complete both a DVD Digipak and a magazine advert which was related to our video and worked well with it. We created the products in a group, but me and Marvin designed the magazine advert while Alex made the Digipak for the tasks.
The combination of our music video and our ancillary tasks worked quite well and you would easily be able to see that they were from the same piece of work. This would be obvious because we just showed our main character in our magazine advert which is the only character which appears in the video. This was so it would easily be indentified to our video and people would be able to see the connection. The magazine advert also showed the name of the artist and the song name clearly on the page. We did this so that it was the first thing which you saw on the page and noticed. This is similar to what we did on our Digipak, where we just had a main character on the front with the artist name and the track name. However, on the back of the case we showed information about the bonus features which we put in our pack. Also on the back cover of the pack we showed some small screenshots from our actual video. This was so that people could get a glimpse at what our video would be like and be able to see a link between the video and the DVD for it. We thought about using screenshots from our initial music video, but then we thought that they would be too blurry and they would not give the right image that we wanted. So we decided to take a camera out from college and take separate pictures using that, which were separate and matched what images we wanted for our magazine advert and our Digipak. Overall I thought that our work all was clearly connected with each other and I think that they worked well together and effectively.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
We received various feedback from both our teachers and other pupils in the class during this project. Most of the feedback which we have received has been mainly useful and we have taken advice as to what they’ve said and made an improvement in some way. The first piece of feedback which we received was at the very beginning of our project. This was when we were doing our pitch to the whole class. Andrea (our teacher) said that our idea was a good one and if we managed to pull it off it would look well and would be different to everything else that is typically in the indie genre. An example of a good bit of feedback was from Andrea where she said that the initial colour filters which we had on our video would not be obvious enough to people watching the video and did not know the plan of the story which we had thought of. We all thought that this was a valid point and could see where she was coming from. So me and Marvin then changed it to make it obvious to other people by making one side in black and white and emphasise the colours in the other. Another relevant piece of good feedback which we received was from other people in our class who said that we had not included that much lip syncing in our video. This was true and we thought that it would definitely improve the quality of our video and make it a bit less story line based. So, in the next lesson we had we decided to take a camera out at college again and just focus on getting more footage of me singing the song and lip syncing it. We are grateful for that piece of feedback as our video would have been very boring and all would have been the same if we did not shoot this extra bit of footage for our video. Another good piece of feedback we received was the one from Andrea regarding the shot of the 2 people chasing the main character down the street. She said that we should completely remove it. We thought about this idea and thought we could play on the comedy factor of the shot. So we thought that we would speed the shot up a lot and make it seem more of a comedy shot on purpose than a shot which just looked stupid by accident. However, we did receive some feedback which we didn’t feel was correct or relevant as such. Some people in our class had said that the trilby hat which we used was not relevant to the lyrics which say ‘ski cap’ but we had changed the initial idea of the ski cap and we thought we could use the trilby hat instead to emphasise the change in characters and it would not be worth reshooting our whole video to just please one group.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In the research stages of our project we mainly used the internet to look through similar videos of the same genre to have a look at what has been done and what has worked well for others. We also used other magazine adverts and DVD’s when we were creating our ancillary tasks. We were given these to look at by our teacher. I found these useful because I was initially confused as to what we were supposed to make, and seeing an example of what we were supposed to do was inspiring as it gave me a clue as to what was needed. In the construction stage of our project, the first and most import piece of technology which we used was the video camera. Without this we would not have been able to film our work. The equipment was good because all our video was clear and when we used the tripod with the camera all the shots were steady and they looked good. Another piece of technology which we used in the construction stage was Final Cut. This was also a very good product to use as it made us able to edit the footage which we had captured and then put it in the order which we wanted it to be in. This programme also made it able for us to edit all of our footage. This was very important in our video as we used a lot of colour filters in our video and without them our video would not have made sense. During the planning stage of the project we mainly just spoke to each other and to our teacher so that we could arrange things. However we also used our blog to quite a lot of detail and found it good so that we had written records of when we had planned to do things and what we had done so far. Finally, during the evaluation stages I used Word so that I could process all my work and so that it could spell check for me etc as well. And then I uploaded it all to the blog onto the internet. Overall I would say that the most useful piece of technology which we used was the Final Cut project. This was because our work would not be half as good as it is without the use of editing and filters etc that we got from Final Cut. But also, if we did not have the use of the internet we would not have been able to do as much work either because we couldn’t have found our research or we wouldn’t have been able to put all our work in one place (blogger).
John Kendall
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I think that our music video is a good one for the indie genre. This is because it is different to the typical indie music video as they normally are based around a performance, with a bit of a storyline going on in the background. However we thought we could contrast this and did our music video based around the performance, with a bit of performance in there as well. We thought of an idea which was fairly similar to the Lily Allen video of ‘LDN’. However, instead of the one main character walking around with everything changing around them we would show a change in a nerdy boys life as to what set of clothes he is wearing. So for example when he is dressed in one set of clothes he would be the nerdy kid with the ordinary life. But when his clothes change he turns into the popular, trendy kid who people like. The video emphasises the change in one boys life when he is the normal/nerdy kid he has an uninteresting life and isn’t seemed as being ‘cool’. But when he is in the change of clothes and has the hat on, he becomes cool and is seen to be a famous singer who people want to be. This challenges the typical conventions of indie genre music videos as they normally consist of performance or a storyline based around being at a party or being in trouble etc. The ‘nerdy’ character also challenges the typical look in an indie music video. This is because he is seen in ‘uncool’ clothes, drives a moped and plays on guitar hero. Whereas the other side of him dresses cool, drives a car and can sing and actually play guitar which is the stereotypical appearance in a video for this genre of song. When we edited our video we added in colour filters, so when it was the ‘nerdy’ character we made it darker and for the cool side we made the colours brighter and more vibrant. We did this because people who did not know the storyline which we had planned might not have understood what was going on if we hadn’t and might’ve just seen it as a mixed up story with no real plot going on in it. For our Digipak and magazine advert we decided to just use the normal, expected type of content, this was because if people were to see the magazine advert with a quirky picture on it, they would not understand what type of music it was and they would maybe not want to buy it quite so much. So we played a bit safe on this side of our project and just made sure we could make something that is seen as a typical product.
How effective is your main product and ancillary texts?
For our two ancillary tasks we had to complete both a DVD Digipak and a magazine advert which was related to our video and worked well with it. We created the products in a group, but me and Marvin designed the magazine advert while Alex made the Digipak for the tasks.
The combination of our music video and our ancillary tasks worked quite well and you would easily be able to see that they were from the same piece of work. This would be obvious because we just showed our main character in our magazine advert which is the only character which appears in the video. This was so it would easily be indentified to our video and people would be able to see the connection. The magazine advert also showed the name of the artist and the song name clearly on the page. We did this so that it was the first thing which you saw on the page and noticed. This is similar to what we did on our Digipak, where we just had a main character on the front with the artist name and the track name. However, on the back of the case we showed information about the bonus features which we put in our pack. Also on the back cover of the pack we showed some small screenshots from our actual video. This was so that people could get a glimpse at what our video would be like and be able to see a link between the video and the DVD for it. We thought about using screenshots from our initial music video, but then we thought that they would be too blurry and they would not give the right image that we wanted. So we decided to take a camera out from college and take separate pictures using that, which were separate and matched what images we wanted for our magazine advert and our Digipak. Overall I thought that our work all was clearly connected with each other and I think that they worked well together and effectively.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
We received various feedback from both our teachers and other pupils in the class during this project. Most of the feedback which we have received has been mainly useful and we have taken advice as to what they’ve said and made an improvement in some way. The first piece of feedback which we received was at the very beginning of our project. This was when we were doing our pitch to the whole class. Andrea (our teacher) said that our idea was a good one and if we managed to pull it off it would look well and would be different to everything else that is typically in the indie genre. An example of a good bit of feedback was from Andrea where she said that the initial colour filters which we had on our video would not be obvious enough to people watching the video and did not know the plan of the story which we had thought of. We all thought that this was a valid point and could see where she was coming from. So me and Marvin then changed it to make it obvious to other people by making one side in black and white and emphasise the colours in the other. Another relevant piece of good feedback which we received was from other people in our class who said that we had not included that much lip syncing in our video. This was true and we thought that it would definitely improve the quality of our video and make it a bit less story line based. So, in the next lesson we had we decided to take a camera out at college again and just focus on getting more footage of me singing the song and lip syncing it. We are grateful for that piece of feedback as our video would have been very boring and all would have been the same if we did not shoot this extra bit of footage for our video. Another good piece of feedback we received was the one from Andrea regarding the shot of the 2 people chasing the main character down the street. She said that we should completely remove it. We thought about this idea and thought we could play on the comedy factor of the shot. So we thought that we would speed the shot up a lot and make it seem more of a comedy shot on purpose than a shot which just looked stupid by accident. However, we did receive some feedback which we didn’t feel was correct or relevant as such. Some people in our class had said that the trilby hat which we used was not relevant to the lyrics which say ‘ski cap’ but we had changed the initial idea of the ski cap and we thought we could use the trilby hat instead to emphasise the change in characters and it would not be worth reshooting our whole video to just please one group.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In the research stages of our project we mainly used the internet to look through similar videos of the same genre to have a look at what has been done and what has worked well for others. We also used other magazine adverts and DVD’s when we were creating our ancillary tasks. We were given these to look at by our teacher. I found these useful because I was initially confused as to what we were supposed to make, and seeing an example of what we were supposed to do was inspiring as it gave me a clue as to what was needed. In the construction stage of our project, the first and most import piece of technology which we used was the video camera. Without this we would not have been able to film our work. The equipment was good because all our video was clear and when we used the tripod with the camera all the shots were steady and they looked good. Another piece of technology which we used in the construction stage was Final Cut. This was also a very good product to use as it made us able to edit the footage which we had captured and then put it in the order which we wanted it to be in. This programme also made it able for us to edit all of our footage. This was very important in our video as we used a lot of colour filters in our video and without them our video would not have made sense. During the planning stage of the project we mainly just spoke to each other and to our teacher so that we could arrange things. However we also used our blog to quite a lot of detail and found it good so that we had written records of when we had planned to do things and what we had done so far. Finally, during the evaluation stages I used Word so that I could process all my work and so that it could spell check for me etc as well. And then I uploaded it all to the blog onto the internet. Overall I would say that the most useful piece of technology which we used was the Final Cut project. This was because our work would not be half as good as it is without the use of editing and filters etc that we got from Final Cut. But also, if we did not have the use of the internet we would not have been able to do as much work either because we couldn’t have found our research or we wouldn’t have been able to put all our work in one place (blogger).
John Kendall
Monday, 7 December 2009
Friday 4th December
During this lesson we went to one of the language rooms upstairs so that we could film our commentary for our media project.
We decided that we would make it slightly different from other groups so that it provided an informative commentary on our media project but was also not boring to watch.
We decided that we would make it slightly different from other groups so that it provided an informative commentary on our media project but was also not boring to watch.
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Tuesday 1st December
Today we started to look at the commentary ideas in more detail and had to think of ideas which we were going to do in our commentary. However Alex and Marvin were away for the lesson so it made the work a little bit harder to come up with ideas. But this also means that there will be no arguments as to what we are going to do.
Monday, 30 November 2009
Digipak and Magazine Ad Shoots
We did our photos for our digipak and our magazine ad. We thought about our ideas which we had originally planned and thought that if it was on a magazine in an advert then it may confuse people if they had not seen the actual video. Therefore we decided to just do a few photos of just me. This is because it is more relevant to the indie based genre and it would also look good if you were just flicking through a magazine and see it. However we didnt just want to have a plain face on shot so we decided to get an interesting shot with a different background to that you might expect.
Friday, 27 November 2009
Magazine Ad
Today we finished all our ancillary tasks, this was our magazine advert and our digipak. Above is our magazine advert, we are proud with what we achieved and think its a good advert that will stand out if people see it in a magazine.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Apology
On behalf of our group I (Alex) am writing to apologise to the media teachers and staff and the other media students for our behaviour last lesson (Monday 23rd November).
We used a college camera inappropriately in a moment of idiocy and we all feel really sorry about it.
I hope that this post conveys at least some of our shame for our actions.
We used a college camera inappropriately in a moment of idiocy and we all feel really sorry about it.
I hope that this post conveys at least some of our shame for our actions.
Friday, 20 November 2009
Group 22 - Homework
Camerawork
Overall i thought the camerawork was good with a lot of variety for instance; close ups, over the shoulder, tracking shots and worm eye shots
Meeting
Today we had a meeting within our group about when we can take the stills camera out next and what date we could do the pictures for our digipak and magazine ad. We have come to a conclusion that we are going to take the stills camera out next Monday and do the photos during the lesson time. So for the lesson we need to bring in all the props which we need eg; hat, clothes etc.
We also thought of ideas on where we could do the photos. We originally thought about doing some of the shots around Cambourne. However we had a look around college and we have found a few areas that have the right feel about them and can help to make our pictures look even better. They give the right image to the indie genre and will go well with our other work.
We also thought of ideas on where we could do the photos. We originally thought about doing some of the shots around Cambourne. However we had a look around college and we have found a few areas that have the right feel about them and can help to make our pictures look even better. They give the right image to the indie genre and will go well with our other work.
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Photo Shoot
For our ancillary task we need to get some proper photographs so next lesson we will be doing a proper photo-shoot. These photos that we need to take are going to be used in our digipak and for our magazine advert. We need to take the photos as we looked at the possible stills from our video and we couldn't us them as they would be blurry images and they would not be good quality at all. For this we need:
- Stills Camera
- Tripod
- John's costumes
- A wall to use as a backdrop
Magazine Ad
Features of Magazine Ad:
- A full page of a face split between the nerdy character and his cool alter ego.
- Will have the band and track name across the page. Will also show the release date for the track on the bottom of the page.
- Will have a small run-down of features in the digpak
- Some "institutional" information such as the record label along the bottom
- A '15' age rating and parental guidance as the song contains some swearing.
Digipak
Some ideas for our Digipak:
- Hologram picture mixing nerd character face with the wannabe, popular face. Depending which way you turn it will depend which picture you see.
- Entry into competition where you can win a chance to live the life of the popular character for a weekend.
- Free invitation to go to the release party of the song where you get to hang out with the band members.
- Picture on the front of the case will be a full body split between the cool character and the nerdy one.
- The back of the case will be the track list in the middle of the page. Either side of the list will be the contrast of each side of his life, with his belongings. The wannabe life will once again be in bright colours, contrasting with the nerdy possessions eg; calculator, glasses etc.
- Some "institutional" information such as the record label and a parental guidance logo as the single contains some swearing.
- Footage of the band playing
Monday, 16 November 2009
Homework - John
I think this picture could be used in our digipak or as our magazine advert. It would be a good picture to use as it shows the artist by himself and it also sticks to the indie genre of the song with the hat and the guitar. This also links well to the main parts of the mise-en-scene in the video with the hat, the guitar and the brightened up shot of his clothes and the background. It is also a good picture that could be used because it is a completely different shot to any that ive seen on a cover or advert.
I think this picture will appeal to the audience quite well as it is a bright image and if it had other effects/writing it could make a good cover or back for a digipak.
DVD pack
Features of this DVD pack consist of;- Track List
- Artist Fan Club Send Off
- Bonus Tracks
- Rating/Parental Advice
- Information About Band
- Album Name
- Artist Name
- Artist Commentary
Conventions of Magazine Ads and Digipak
Magazine Ad;
Digipak
- Grab Attention - Reviews, Images
- Advertise; - Band Name, Album Name, Release Date, Where its Available, Reviews of Product
- Label
- Website; - Band Official Site, Myspace, Twitter, Facebook
- Audience
- How is the Artist Represented?
- How Successful is it as an Advert?
Digipak
- Special Edition - Adds Value - Sell at Higher Price
- Track List
- Website
- Institutional Info; - Label Information, Who's Who in the Band
- Extra Features; - Posters, Autographs, Pictures, Live Footage, Interviews, Bonus Tracks, Promo Videos, Rating/Parental Advice
- Artist Name
- Album Name
- Image/Motif of Artist
Extra Filming
On Wednesday morning (11th November) John and Marvin did some extra filming for our music video. They focused on some specific things that we believed we needed, that Andrea had highlighted and things that people had suggested during the group feedback sessions. Our primary aim, however, was to add some more lip-syncing as this was the main thing people felt we needed more of in our video. The lip-syncing which John and Marvin managed to get was good quality and we feel that it is only going to make our work of better standard.
John and Marvin did a good job and we now have plenty of extra footage and lip-syncing that we can add into our video during this lesson (Friday 13th).
John and Marvin did a good job and we now have plenty of extra footage and lip-syncing that we can add into our video during this lesson (Friday 13th).
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Teacher feedback - Tuesday 10th November
In today's lesson Andrea had another look at our work we've done, she has suggested that we should make the color filters more obvious and make a much clearer split between the 2 characters so that people who don't know our initial story are more able to understand what we plan the audience to see. She has also suggested that we either remove the shot of the 2 people chasing the main character or change it so its sped up and reversed to make it seem to have more of a comedy value to it.
I also phoned Marvin during the lesson today as he was not in. We have decided that me and him will come in early tomorrow morning so that we can film some extra footage as it is a must if we are to get a good mark and improve our project. We now need to decide whether to come in after college on wednesday or thursday to add in the new footage which we are going to get and then edit it in with the parts of the video which we have done already.
I also phoned Marvin during the lesson today as he was not in. We have decided that me and him will come in early tomorrow morning so that we can film some extra footage as it is a must if we are to get a good mark and improve our project. We now need to decide whether to come in after college on wednesday or thursday to add in the new footage which we are going to get and then edit it in with the parts of the video which we have done already.
Tuesday 10th November
In today's lesson I was the only person from our group who was in college. Therefore there was not much work that I could complete as we have not done any additional footage and we have done all the cutting and editing for our original footage already. Therefore the only work that I could do was to polish the video up a little bit and do some minor changes.
I thought I could use the time to smarten up our blog a little bit and to make it of better quality and make it more presentable as we haven't spent many lessons recently focusing on our blog and sharpening it up.
I thought I could use the time to smarten up our blog a little bit and to make it of better quality and make it more presentable as we haven't spent many lessons recently focusing on our blog and sharpening it up.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Plans for filming
We plan to re-film some areas, particularly:
Adding some more lip-syncing and filming some more live performance of the main character singing. By having more of these shots we will also be able to get rid of some of the hat filler shots which we have too much of at the moment.
Re-filming the 'fight' scene so that you can see it easier and can see more of what is actually happening in the clip.
Re-filming of the scene in which the main character gets followed by those 2 strangers. We could re film this shot so that there are more people following him as it looks a bit empty as it is, and maybe have a group of girls following so it seems like the main artist is more popular.
Adding some more lip-syncing and filming some more live performance of the main character singing. By having more of these shots we will also be able to get rid of some of the hat filler shots which we have too much of at the moment.
Re-filming the 'fight' scene so that you can see it easier and can see more of what is actually happening in the clip.
Re-filming of the scene in which the main character gets followed by those 2 strangers. We could re film this shot so that there are more people following him as it looks a bit empty as it is, and maybe have a group of girls following so it seems like the main artist is more popular.