Friday, 11 December 2009

End post

Please click 2009 to see my entire blog from back to front.


This is the final post of my Media blog - I hope you have enjoyed reading it.

Media Music Video, finshed product.
Owl city - Hot air balloon


Here is a link to Fletchers YouTube channel with our Music Video on, in addition to the hard copy -- http://www.youtube.com/user/enjoiflea

Ancillary Text One - The Unofficial Owl city Website

www.wix.com/enjoi_flea/owlcityowlcityowlcity

Ancillary Text Two - NME Cover and Advertisment





Monday, 7 December 2009

Evaluation question 4

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

Research



In the research stage of my media music video, the very first new technology I used to help me was the internet, and more specifically internet search stations such as Google. By using these we managed to find loads of information on music videos, the conventions within them, the diversification they hold and techniques that are useful to employ when creating one. Another new technology that stemmed from search engines is the use of online magazine achieves, such as that of Q magazine which we used to look at their ‘Best music videos of all time’ article.
Wikipedia was a good source of background and overview information, as well as providing some useful external links, but as it is anonymous it is not a truly reliable source so could not be trusted unless thoroughly cross referenced.


Moreover, YouTube was a brilliant source of primary research as we could watch loads of music videos (Such as stop motion influences, PEN story, Raconteurs – Salute your solution, The White Stripes – Blue Orchid), read what people thought of them on the comments below and evaluate them ourselves. It also enabled us to pick up on loads of ideas and inspirational techniques used by other directors and producers. Finally YouTube enabled us to watch several Pop up Videos and learn about certain music videos, techniques used within them, the budgets they had and other trivial information about them and the artist.




The final new media technology we used at the research stage is DVD extras; we watched DVD extras on Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry both were extremely useful in giving us an insight into the kinds of principles and work that goes into music video. In the Michel Gondry DVD we watched videos he had done for Beck, The White Stripes and the Foo Fighters just to mention a few. In the Foo Fighters video we saw a perfect example of textual schizophrenia where Gondry lived out a nightmare he had as a child through Dave Grohl.

Planning

For the planning stage we used technologies such as camera phones to take pictures of location ideas so that we could evaluate which would be the best location for our video, this was because if we were out and about and found somewhere that would be perfect for a certain part of our video it was a lot easier to capture on a camera phone than an actual camera.
In anticipation of our main media product we downloaded a few trial versions of different editing software, such as Sony Vegas, Pinnacle Studio and Adobe premiere elements. This helped us to gauge what each software was like to use and which we felt was best for what we were doing and which we felt most comfortable with. Finally we settled on using Sony Vegas as it provided us with everything we needed to create our video and the effects to give it the finishing touches. It also enabled us to cut the music down within it which was helpful as we cut the song down slightly to increase repeatability and ensure it did not drag on or become repetitive in a bad way. Plus Sony Vegas was compatible with our Canon Camera files which was essential as our entire video was made up with them! The only downfall of Sony Vegas was that every time we put a new photo on it, we had to cut each individual one down to the correct time, but this was the same on all editing software so there was no way around it really.

The final piece of new media technology we used in the planning was a scanning machine that enabled us to get our hand drawn storyboards onto the computer and therefore the blog. It was a very simple piece of technology to use and it enabled us to use our original storyboards instead of having to try and create digital ones on the computer.

Construction
In terms of using new media technologies in the construction of the music video itself there are 3 main technologies used.
The first one is the camera itself, we used a Canon EOS 1000D, it is in Canon’s DSLR profession range, it has many functions that helped us to create our music video, for example ‘sport’ or ‘burst’ mode, where the camera will take loads of frames per second, making it a lot easier to capture movement within the shot, however as the frames have to be captured so quickly you sometimes sacrifice quality if there isn’t enough light, so we had to make sure there was enough light either by photographing at certain times in the day, using artificial light or using the flash on the camera. It would have not made any sense to use a Sony Handycam like we did last time as everything we needed to do involved completely still images as although the Handycam can take still images, it is not specialized in doing that, whereas the Canon is extremely specialized in taking still images.

The second new media technology we used in the construction of our music video is the editing software, for our media piece as mentioned in planning, we used Sony Vegas, we used Vegas because it allowed us to do everything we needed and it was simple to use. We used it on our AS media project so we knew our way around it as a package, however, we did still download trial programs for other software just to check to see what they were like. Vegas allowed us to upload our photos quickly by letting us drag them in, shorten the time length they remained on the screen for, change the colours of them, change the intensity or the opacity of them, use filters, effects or blurs and it also let us cut our music down so that we could cut out the last chorus in order to increase repeatability and decrease monotony, what was especially helpful was that Vegas allowed us to make certain parts of the song e.g. the vocals or synthesizer quieter, which made it a lot easier to fit the song together.





The third new media technology we used in the construction of the media music video was the Kodak 24 hour printing service; this enabled us to put all of our photos onto memory stick, give it to the person in the kiosk and then picked all the printed photos 24 hours later. This was a great service as it saved us a huge amount of time and money compared to how much it would cost us in both time and money to print them out ourselves. Plus by using Kodak it guaranteed a good quality of print and on good quality paper. For 800 prints it cost our group £40 which is highly cost effective; this price is as we had so many prints as the more prints you have the cheaper it becomes.







Finally the two media technologies we used in the construction of our ancillary texts are Photoshop and Wix website. Photoshop was used in the construction of our magazine cover to import and edit images, create many layers over each other and insert text or logos. In terms of creating a website we used Wix.com to create ours, it was quite simple and very effective. It provided use with a loose layout on which we could build upon, adding information pictures and songs onto a music player in the bottom corner. Both of these technologies are highly effective in helping us to create our supporting products as without them it would have been much harder and taken much more time overall.
Evaluation

For our evaluation we received loads of feedback from social networking site ‘Facebook’, all of it was positive and very supportive this was good as it minored and reinforced the views expressed by teachers but it was feedback from an age group closer to the target audience for music video, especially of this genre. Within a few days we had received over 40 comments and more than 50 people had ‘liked’ it.

The second media technology we used in the feedback / evaluation stage of our coursework was email. We did not initially intend on emailing our video to anyone within the media industry, however when two of my close friends who have worked within the industry for years expressed the strong recommendation of sending it to Owl City we were persuaded. After roughly two weeks, we received feedback from Owl City’s manager saying that he ‘loved it’ and that he was going to forward it to Adam himself who is currently touring in Hong Kong and China.
So overall in the research, planning, construction and evaluation of our music video we used quite a few new media technologies to their full extent which were exceedingly helpful in helping us to create an effective media product.

Tuesday, 1 December 2009

Evaluation question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

In terms of evaluating our media piece by looking at the feedback we received, we received lots of positive feedback and some constructive criticism that could be and was used to improve our video.
The first feedback we received was from a year 12 media class, to gain this feedback we showed them all our video and gave them a feedback sheet to fill in, the sheet included a mark out of 10, good point and bad points; the results were very pleasing!



This pie chart shows the marks that we were awarded by the students, in the blue is the proportion of students who gave us 9/10 and in the red is the proportion of students that gave us 10/10. The class we showed it to was a class of 16 and the actual number were, 13 gave us 10/10 and 3 gave us 9/10; so as is clearly evident the video was a great success!Another positive aspect of this form of feedback is that the feedback was gained of students who make up a very large part of the target market for music videos, proving that our video appealed greatly to its target market, once again confirming its success.

In addition to the quantitative data collected above, we also got some qualitative data from the feedback sheets; we asked the students to list 3 things they liked or thought were good about the music video, things that came up a lot included:

Good use of stop motion
· Impressive editing - in time with the music
· Lighting
· Use of colours
· Originality
· The roundabout scene
· Had a consistent flow
· Imaginative intro / ending

The fact that ‘Good use of stop motion’ and ‘Originality’ came up the most shows us that we understood the conventions of stop motion and developed them so that we put our own twist on the idea of stop motion and used it in conjunction with a loose narrative and in a music video.
The last part of the feedback sheet was asking the students to write 3 things that they thought would improve the video or make it a better viewing experience overall. Some of the constructive criticisms are listed below:

· Some photos were blurry
· Some photos had a glossy finish to them due to the flash on the camera
· The background could have been more interesting
· Becomes slightly repetitive

All of these comments are fair and have a completely valid point, not just because I myself agree with some of them, but because these students are our target audience so if they feel it would improve the video they are almost definitely right, as they are the people who will be watching them and who have seen many official music videos. For example, if we could film again we would look at filming or photographing in better day light so we would not have to use the flash and we would not get the flash visible on the glossy photo paper, we could use more imaginative or varied backgrounds for the photos to travel along and perhaps vary the techniques or possibly use more animation (Like in the chorus) to reduce the impact of repetitiveness.
Our second source of feedback was the social networking site ‘Facebook’ we uploaded our video onto Facebook in the hope of getting some feedback and it was hugely successful as we got loads of feedback, again from people who are bang on the same age group as the target audience for music video. Here are just some of the 44 comments we received:

· "That is actually amazing considering the resources and technology we have to work with, it wouldn't look out of place on MTV."
· "That is crazyyy, its profeshh. and a lot of effort."
· "What i like most is that it's photos of photos, which is really imaginative"
· "Awesome you all obviously put in the effort and got your reward"
· "Mentally good! on the feedback sheet I couldn't say anything bad about it! this belongs on MTV!"

Another big point that people made was that they thought we should send it off to different institutions in hope they would use it in one of their promotions or that it ‘Belongs on MTV’, this again reassured us that we had hit the target audience perfectly.

Right at the end of the video, you see the photos hanging off balloons and then being placed back into an envelope from the bed, this was not initially how our video ended, however, we decided that upon hearing a few comments from people within our target audience expressing the view that they thought the ending could ‘Be better, and not end in such as abrupt way, perhaps having more of a conclusion’ we decided to re-shoot this scene and feature the balloons and envelope again. I think it worked perfectly as the photos going back into the envelope refers back to the start and them coming out of the envelope and the balloons add a new and exciting idea into the blog. The initial people we received the constructive criticism off felt that ‘The ending has much more of a conclusion now, it wraps it up perfectly’ which once more shows that we have pleased and satisfied our target audience.

However by far the most pleasing piece of feedback we received was from Owl city’s Marketing Director and their Manager. We did not initially intend to send them our video, however, when two of my friends who have worked within the music industry for a long time saw it, they persuaded us that it was good enough to show them! Olivia Nunn Owl city’s marketing director said ‘This is absolutely amazing! I’m very impressed!’ she then added ‘The video has been sent to Adam (Owl City) and if I get some feedback I'll let you know. His manager loved it." We have not yet heard back from Adam, but the fact that we received this feedback from his manager directly and that he thought it was so good that he decided to send it to Adam himself reaffirms that it has done its job as there are very few people as trustworthy when it comes to feedback as the artist or the artists manager as it is there music, reputation and livelihood at stake if it is a bad media product. So the fact they praised it so highly clearly states that we understood the conventions of music video and carried them out in a stylish and imaginative manor ensuring that our video stood out from the crowd.