Video Commentary

feedback on editing commentary

We thought we had a hard time editing the commentary as we had loads of footage to edit but as we had filmed it one question running to the next it wasn't so bad, especially as we had to cut out where we went wrong or laughed which happened a few times.

We had to think about how we were going to even out the change from clip to clip as there were jumps between each one. We thought back to the music video and remembered that we used special effects in these parts such as dissolve or fade so we decided to use these special effects in the parts thats were jumpy. We realised each part was a tad jumpy and it looked better with special effects on each one so we kept them in.

We went on to putting our own footage into the commentary so we can have examples in whilst we are talking about them. We all thought this was the best way to go around it as the other ideas we had would of made it longer and then we would've had to cut other parts which were more important. This way they know what part we are talking about as its on the screen when we are talking.

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

In our music video, we use many forms and conventions which stick to our genre of music. Many which follow the Goodwin’s points of analysis. In the lyrics, we hear, “she believes that she’s a bit old for gifts and cakes and party favors.” To link this with the video, we decided to have a party with other scenes that show she’s not having fun which is implied with this line. We also thought we would have seventeen candles on a cake which we put at the end of the video as the song is called seventeen candles and cake is mentioned in the lyric which is shown above. We are selling the artist by having him in the video alone so the audience are not distracted by anything. This way we are meeting the demands of the record label and can also involve lip syncing into it so we are covering two of the Goodwin’s points at once. The use of close ups of the artist help sell his look and make him a recognizable face.

The genre we have chosen is the indie rock genre and I feel that we kept within this genre well. We researched into other indie rock bands to see what we could do and looked into bands such as The Jonas Brothers. We liked how they dressed and used this in our own video by having Nathan dressed in a big black coat and jeans with converse style shoes. We also looked at the Kooks song, “When the Sun goes Down” which has many different shots of the band. We wanted to film our video in the same style as this video which is shown with the panning around the tree with the band member singing and having many close ups and over the shoulder shots. However, we did use transitions which don’t fit in with this genre as they don’t use transitions but we all thought they went well in the video.

Our location was to originally have it in a house but none of us could have it in our house so we changed it to a garden party. We had trouble shooting this so we had to quickly come up with a back up plan which was a location in the college. The use of having it in outside is so we could keep it in our genre and showing the artist in the location helped the audience to recognise the location. Our artist is represented as a casual cool artist in whom people can look up to as a role model as more of the audience will want to be like him, want to listen to his music therefore selling the artist in a positive way.

We have extras in the video for the party scenes so we could make this part work to a good standard. They are dressed casually implying that they do not care which a part of this genre so it fits in well and their expressions show they are having a good time which contrasts with the main female character.

We use voyeurism in our video as the female character doesn’t look up at the camera throughout the video whereas the male character does when he is singing the chorus. This shows the difference between the two characters. This way we take more focus upon the female as she is part of the story behind the song. We do not use much intertextuality apart from when we used the sin city effect. This is when we have the black and white with coloured balloons effect. We used this effect because when we were researching on it, it looked very effective and stood out a lot. We wanted our video to stand out and thought this was the perfect way to do this.


2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

I feel that we have a strong connection between the ancillary tasks and our music video. We thought it would be best to have them all linked by having the main characters on the ancillary tasks as we did in the music video. We went out and took pictures of the female and male instead of using shots from the video as they would come out better. We also thought it would be a good effect if we put it in black and white like the video as this would be a great link to the video. This way we can link the DVD cover with the video and sell the artist and song better.

There are also some genre characteristics shown on the DVD cover that link them to the artist which is shown with the text being highlighted pink, which links with the name of band, ‘The Pink Spiders.’ We chose to do this as we wanted to do something that stood out and it links in nicely with everything. We ere originally going to use another font which was being taught to us, again from YouTube, but we couldn’t understand where we were meant to be going with it so decided against this and stuck to a font we were good at from Photoshop.

The DVD cover promotes the record label in the way we have different record label company’s logos on the DVD to show they sponsor the band making them look better when the DVD sells. We also promote the band by having them actually on the DVD cover so it’s easily recognisable to the audience when they buy it. Also by having the girl on the back of the DVD cover, it offers an insight into what will be in the music video. This is trying to attract the audience into wanting to know more so having to buy the DVD to watch it.

3. What have you learnt from the audience feedback?

We have learnt a lot from the audience feedback, some we knew about already and some which were new. They mentioned we had repetitive footage when we had given in our rough cut. This was because we hadn’t enough footage so had to put some old parts in. We took this on board and later went out to film more footage, this time coming back with loads, and put it in where we had repeated parts. We also had large parts missing in the chorus when we were meant to film the band. We had trouble shooting this so had to improvise and shot a band member instead which worked even better than the band would off.

We had positive feedback about our sin city effect which was amazing for us as we had a lot of work to do still so this gave us motivation to carry on with the rest. It took us a long time to do which was another reason we were happy that people like it. We also got positive feedback for the final pieces which gave us a boost as were not very positive about our video but looking back, everything went really well and we are glad other people thought so too.

The people who gave us feedback on our tasks where from our target audience so this information we received from them was very important to us in improving the music video. This was because we want to attract the same age group and by them giving us feedback on what they liked and what they wanted to see was very crucial to making our music video a good one and one that would appeal to the target audience of teenagers.

Feedback on our pitch was good and bad as different people said different things. Some people were pleased with what we had planned to do and where we wished to head. They liked the idea of having party scenes in the video and said this worked well with the song. However, when we put pictures up of our shot types, people couldn’t see them clearly so suggested we should put new ones up which we did. They were also very praising about our ancillary tasks, saying that they followed the genre characteristics, it looked professional and the continuity was done well. This made us happy as we liked what we had done but were not sure other people would so when they said this, we were relieved.

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

We researched into many different bands and artists in our indie rock genre and got a lot of information from it which helped us to put together our music video in a proper way. For this we used YouTube and Google to look into specific bands and artists to get the information we wanted and giving us much more than we needed. YouTube helped us through step by step to get our special sin city effect in our video in the right way. We had no idea how to do it originally but with some help, we managed to do a great job as this is an advanced piece of software which we didn’t get taught in class.

In our music video stage, we used Final Cut Express to piece our footage together, adding effects to it and generally getting it up to a high standard of a music video out today. We wanted to have special effects to change from one view to another so use dissolving and shifts to create these special features. We did this buy clicking on the part we wanted and choosing the right effect from the toolbar at the top. We went through each one and decided on the best effects for each change. We also had use of I Photo which meant that we could easily get our pictures up so we could get our magazine and DVD cover to the best we could. These programs have been easy to use and I have learnt much more than I knew before this task.

We kept a stage by stage blog explaining, keeping track and generally keeping information about what we were doing in each lesson and out side of lesson. This was good for us as if we didn’t know when or where we were filming then we could just check the blog and it would tell us. We uploaded pictures and our final pieces to show everyone else where we were heading to and how it turned out. People from other groups added feedback to it, giving us advice on to where we could improve which was very helpful to us and we learnt a lot from that.
I have progressed well from As to A2 as I have learnt many new techniques from this project and have grown in confidence in the practical side of things. Last year I was more on the blogging side and hardly did any practical work so decided this year I would do more practical so I have grown in confidence on this side this year. We have even gone further by using the sin city effect as this is a very hard technique to do.

When we did the pre-lim task, this prepared me for what to do this time round. It was a fun experience as I had not done anything like this in media before so it was quite new for me. Filming it was long process as we wanted to get it perfect in having different angles so we had to film it though about 5 times. When we went on to editing, this was easy to get it all on and together but it took a little longer getting it all squished in and in the right position. Overall though, it was fun and made me really want to do the real thing.

Feedback on Commentary

We found filming the commentary easier than planned. We ended up with a lot of footage which was more than we needed, even though some of it was bloopers. This gave us loads to edit in final cut when we start editing.

We did had a bit of trouble decided on what to say but once we had started, we couldn't stop and the length of footage we got showed this. We managed to answer all the questions, allowing each group member the chance to talk freely giving our views on each one.

We filmed the commentary in a classroom which can be shown as an office so we used the best location we could. We placed four chairs in a row so we could all be seen when we were filming. This worked well as we were able to chat easily between us and look more professional.

DVD Cover

Above is our completed DVD cover for our Digipack.

David Bowie DVD Cover

On a dvd cover, i would expect to see the artist displayed on the front of the case. In this example David Bowie is on the front, though his face has been made up by lots of different pictures of his face.

The title of the dvd is in white big bold letters which stand out against the blue background. This is effective in the way that he wants people to notice the dvd so they would then go on to buying it.

On the back of the DVD case has all the tracks

that the DVD contains. This obviously would appeal to any David Bowie fan by letting them

These are dived into two discs which is easily shown on the back so you know which disc to go to when you want to listen to a certain track. The presentation of this is kept simple for the fans so they can scan for the chosen track in an easy manner.see which of his songs the DVD contains.

Inside the dvd cover, there are two different sides, one holding the dvds which is normally on the right side and the other side, it holds the booklet of information about the dvd.

Within the DVD case, the booklet holds information on the artist and their tracks. This information normally consists of the song title, music publisher, director and sometimes the lyrics to the songs.

Feedback Feedback

We read through the feedback we were given by other groups in our class and have taken it all into consideration. We realized we still need to fill a large section of our work in which we thought lip syncing was the best way to fill this. This way we also stick to the Goodwin's points.

We had positive feedback about the different colour filters which was good as we were most proud about this and it took us a long time to do.

We decided to film some close ups of the female as we haven't got any yet so thought this would be a good idea to include some. This gives it a variety which was mentioned in a feedback from group 48.

Also filming different shots we will be able to replace the scenes which are repeated in the video which some groups did pick up on.

The lip syncing will be demonstrated by the band playing the chorus which we also still need to film.

Roughcut

This is our roughcut video, as you can see, we are missing quite a large amount of footage. This would be because of all the problems we ran into when filming and some confusion about the direction of the piece. We have thrown together some rough footage so we wouldn't miss the roughcut deadline, whether all or any of the footage used in the piece will be in the final thing, we are unsure.

One thing we are proud of is the editing of the colour balloons on a black and white filter.

When we first tried to upload the video to the blog, we didn't follow the instructions as well as we thought we had so it wouldn't upload. We cancelled this and started from the beginning and this time managed to upload our rough cut.

Location

As we had a bit of a problem shooting at the start, we finally managed to get a perfect place for our party. It may not be an actual garden but it looks the part. Here are some shots of what we

 used in our "Garden";

....Editing continued

As we had mentioned in our last blog, we had trouble trying to keep our females face in black and white whilst changing the colour of the balloon as they were similar colours. We found out with some help that we could crop some of the footage so it shows different sections of the two video slides. This way we could keep her face looking normal instead of badly sunburnt. 

We cropped the ballon in one slide and put this over the original slot so we ended up with just the balloon red and rest black and white. Once we knew we could do this and got it sorted out, we were able to use this technique in the other places we wanted to change colour and it turned out to be a better quality of colour as well so it worked out better in the end.

Editing....

So far for our editing, we have managed to upload our footage onto Final Cut Express. We chopped it up into our different sections and placed them in the right slots to go with the music. As we still have to get some footage of our band playing, we have a few empty places where the chorus is which will be filled once we have filmed the band.

We have had some trouble with turning some of our footage black and white but we found out where we were going wrong and it was easy once we knew how to do it properly. We wanted to turn some of our balloons to colour when we had the rest black and white. We had to research into how we could do this and we had trouble adjusting the whole balloon to a certain colour. We changed the balloon to red but the females face also changed red. It took us a long time to finally figure out where we were going wrong and finally, we managed to turn the right parts red whilst keeping everything else black and white.

Music Video Analysis

We decided we should look into another song from The Pink Monkeys called "Modern

Swinger". We wanted our bad to be shown in some of the footage in our video. This 

music video shows the band singing and playing the instruments which is what we 

intend to use in our music video. 

They are also dressed as one of our ideas to how we want our band members to wear 

which is another reason for picking this music video to look at. The skinny jeans and 

shirts will go well with our video as its a stereotype in this genre and it is shown in most 

of the groups that are associated with this genre.

This is the link to the music video "Modern Swingers by The Pink Spiders;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcO3D62mH8c  

This picture below is another example of what we intend to have our band look similar

to;

Digipack - magazine rough idea

For our Digipack, we have chosen this because it matches the theme of the music video and incorporates music/lyrics to visuals which will be shown in the video. The DVD cover will follow the same feel as the magazine but will have a different image/ text. Below is what we plan to have as our Digipack cover;

filming Times

We will be filming our video on wednesday the 7th october 2009 from 5:00pm onwards as this is the time which it starts to get dark. This way we can have the fairy lights stand out more and make it seem more realistic.

We expect to film it within one evening as we want to have the same clothing, props, food etc throughout the whole video instead of it changed at a point in the video. However if the weather is bad then we may need to carry on on another night but make sure we have everything as last time. 

Props

For our shoot we will need: 

• cake with seventeen candles
• fairy lights
• table
• food and drink 
• marque 
• instrument (2 guitars, bass)
• flood lights 
• guests 

Research into genre specific mise-en-scene

The pink spiders say that their music fits into Rock 'N' Roll/ power pop/ soul music genres.  Below are specific mise-en-scene characteristics for each genre which we should follow when we compose our video.

Costumes: We are going to be looking at three different styles of costumes which are listed below:

Rock 'N' Roll:

Ripped jeans, waistcoats, shaggy long haircuts

Bouncing around the stage, head-banging, looking like they are having fun.

Power Pop:

Skinny jeans, shirts, jackets.

Bright neon colours, Sometimes cartoons, big "in your face" text.

Soul:

Smartly dressed/formal.

Normally singer on cover,  big smiles, a lot of text about the songs on front.

Setting:

We are setting our music video in a garden of one of our group members. This way, we do not annoy other people and have the possibility of doing our video the way we want to without any distractions.

Getting permission form the artist

Before we start filming we needed to get permission from the pink spiders (the artists of our chosen song.) We did this by sending a message on there facebook fans page, the message we send is placed below:

Music Video Pitch

17 Candles - The Pink Spiders.

When composing our video pitch there are some points which need to be addressed, they are:

• The location 
  
  
• The story/narrative 
• The look/ feel of the video 
• The tone
• The pace 
• Colour  

Location:

The location will be outside in a garden or field which will mean there will be almost fairy tale with fairy lights and lanterns creating the perfect atmosphere for a party where it will end in romance. This way we can fit in a crowd of people who have been invited to the party and also fit in the band playing. 

Story/ Narrative:

The leading lady is throwing a party for her seventeenth birthday, after sending many invites the one person, a boy she likes doesn't turn up. This will obviously be an unhappy time for her starting the music video in a sad mood. She goes on to take comfort in the lead singer of the band playing at her party and realises that it is him who she likes creating a happier mood and making the video have a more cheerful ending. 

 

Look/ feel:

Party atmosphere, darker look untill she becomes happy, busy but must capture the girls feeling of being alone, possible slow-motion. The band are dressed in skinny jeans and shirts and based around The Jonas Brothers like in the above picture.

Tone/ Colour:

Begins black and white to suite the mood of the video (sad and unhappy) but turns into colour when the mood changes (happier and enjoying her self) soft lighting produced mainly from candle light lanterns. 

Goodwin's points.

Concerning genre characteristics, with our music video we've decided to class it in the indie/power pop genre. We're planning to stick the conventions around indie music videos.

We hope that our music video will incorporate the visual lyrics idea, for example when the band sing the line '17 Candles' we will do things like show the 17 candles on a birthday cake. The song is about an unhappy girl at a party and that's the main theme of our video. This helps bring in the idea that at the party the band will be performing helping create the visual music idea. As for selling the artist, if our group were to actually be 'The Pink Spiders' (the band that do the song originally) I believe we would be selling the artist, but because we're not, we cannot sell the artist. As for voyeurism, we feel that the need to show style when creating the video should be made evident. We want to portray the true meaning of the song behind the video in a stylistic way that should be enjoyable to watch for an audience. 

Digipack:

For our digipack cover, we have decided to use a still from our footage. This way, the audience can link us with our other works and easily recognize from other leading bands. The still we decided to use on the digipack is the leading lady looking up towards the band which are centre stage on the cover. The setting is at the party so the scenery is outside with decoration such as balloons and lanterns. We were wondering if we should also have people who are at the party on the cover on it aswell but decided against this as it took the focus away from the female and band. As the song is called, " seventeen candles", we thought how we could portray this in the cover and thought it best if we kept it simple and put seventeen candles on a cake on a table in the corner of the left hand side so it would be shown but yet again, not taking the focal point away from the characters.