Evaluation Question One

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

Listening to the track I chose gave me a lot of initial ideas for my music video. These included things such as a dying relationship theme and dark, sad feelings. Therefore, I researched different videos on YouTube to try and get some inspiration. I had a guideline of what music videos I should watch due to recognising the genre of the track I chose. After analysing the music style and comparing it to other songs, I realised that the song I chose was in the alternative rock genre. Therefore I researched different alternative rock songs and watched their videos on YouTube for inspiration.



From doing this, I was also able to recognise techniques used throughout different music videos which I was then able to apply to my own product.
Conventions such as low key lighting and lip synching are two of the things that I used in my media product. From the research I did, I noticed that these are two things that commonly appear in real alternative rock music videos. The low key lighting helps to create the ‘grungy’ feel I was trying to create in my music video and is also what is used for many alternative rock music videos as this particular lighting matches the tempo and overall representation of the majority of songs of this genre.

Lip synching is another convention in my music video that is used in real alternative rock music videos. I have incorporated lip synching into my media product as this is something I wanted to include. My character lip synchs as he travels through the narrative. I thought this was a better decision rather than having clips of performance throughout the video as I felt a wholly narrative based video fitted the track more. This is one thing that challenges the conventions of an alternative rock music video since most music videos of this genre include many band performance shots. However, I believe I made the right choice here as I could’nt imagine the character of my track appearing in a band performance due to the heavy emotions that are being created and connoted. I believe a band performance would have disturbed the narrative here and would have broken the intensity. I also trust that the music is not heavy enough for a band appearance as the instruments are very subtle through most of the song.

There is a distinct mise-en-scene that is used for alternative rock music videos such as dark clothing, bearded faces and messy hair.

I have included all of these things for my character to help create the correct appearance. The bearded face and messy hair also contribute nicely to my track specifically as it is about a man with troubles in his life. Therefore it is obvious that you would expect him to look rough and untidy opposed to clean and smart.

When researching alternative rock music videos, I was very aware of the locations used. I looked at Dido ‘Here With Me’ and Foo Fighters ‘Dear Rosemary’. Both of these music videos used locations such as streets and the home environment at night. I think it is important to recognise the night time setting in these videos as it reinforces the fact that the majority of alternative rock music videos use low key lighting. I took inspiration from the locations used in the videos I looked at and decided that a dark bedroom, a street at night and a pub with low key lighting were ideal locations for me to use in my own video. These three locations are places any person would generally visit and that therefore meant I was keeping my video realistic with no performance locations such as studios.



Evaluation Question Two

Evaluation Question Three

Evaluation Question 3

View more PowerPoint from millsl

Evaluation Question Four

Audience Feedback for Music Video

Final Digipack Design

Whole Digipack with front designs

I applied the designs I had dne for the front for the digipack on the rest of the didipack to see how they would look:

Front of Digipack

From looking through the different designs for the front covers of alternative rock digipacks, I got the idea to use the threshold effect to make the photo black and white. I thought this may give the image a 'dirty' appearance.

 I liked these a lot and wanted to incorporate them into the from cover of my digipack. However, I was unsure of how to do it without making it look amateur. Therefore, I tried a few designs to see what looked best.

Above are all possible designs for the front of my digipack. I designed them like this because I am sticking with the alternative rock genre. From looking at them like this and comparing them, I prefer the one with only three images of Chris. I am yet to add the artist and album name, however I decided to design some covers with bigger images or Chris so there are less of them.

 Above are the designs I came up with after deciding that I preferred less and larger images of Chris. However audience feedback told me that something else added would improve them, therefore I did something different:

 See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil is something very iconic and reasonably well known. Relating to the alternative rock genre, this is different and something out of the ordinary which I think works very well. I included the blue with attempts to match it to the back cover of my digipack. I am yet to see how these designs look with the rest of my digipack!

Digipack Inside Panels

I decided that a photo from the actual filming locations would be an effective touch to add to the inside of my digipack. As I was filming, I took random photos for proof of filming and to help me capture different angles for my filming. This has come in very useful as I can now use these for my digipack.

I had a fair few to choose from including these:

All of these photos are taken from in the pub. I think this is the perfect location for the photos as the lighting is low key and the message that the photo delivers consists of the character being lonely or depressed as he is drinking on his own at night time.

I like the photos of Chris drinking at the bar the most. They show that he is on his own and the lighting is very good here. I also think the angle is nice as the photos show the bar as well.

 

Above are the photos that I think are most relevant and efective. However, whichever one I choose will need to be editited. From looking at these photos, I have decided that I like the one of Chris where he isn't drinking. I think it gives the impression that he is stuck in thought rather than just drinking at the bar.

To make this photo more effective, I chose to alter the contrast and exposure levels to make the lighting seem more dark with attempts to make the photo seem more emotional.

  This is the finished photo for the inside panels of my digipack. The editing I have done on it makes it look more effective and professional.

This is what my digipack looks like so far with all of the panels except from the front.

Editing

After capturing all of the footage I needed to make my music video, I then transferred it all onto the W Drive on one of the computers in the media room. I then opened my footage up on Adobe Premier Pro in order to begin the editing. I initially had no plan on how I would structure my editing, but then decided I would edit it from beginning to end. This worked out really well for me as I was able to adjust the times of the clips freely without having too much stress of trying to fit clips in here and there. I knew exactly what shots I had and had a fair idea on where they would all go before I even started my editing which was a huge benefit as I knew exactly what shots should go where.

It took me a fair amount of time to cut the clips up into the right time scales and edit them all together to fit the time of the song. Once everything fitted together, I then had to change the lighting, contrast and exposure levels of some of the clips so they matched the other ones. This was due to the fact that the lighting was different in many clips due to me filming the shots on different days. It was near impossible to get the exact same lighting and therefore the editing software helped me to achieve this.

I also used the editing software to extend the duration of the clips so they filled up a larger area of the song. I used this on clips such as the ones of Georgie in the bed as Chris was at the pub. Another feature I used was the 'Ghosting Effect' when Chris was spinning and singing up into the camera. I used this in order to portray a drunk effect as though his vision is blurred and as though he is in a slightly outer body experience.


I created the title on Adobe Illustrator and opened it up into the title option on Premier Pro and chose how I wanted it to appear on the screen and how I wanted it to exit. I chose to have the title appear on the screen slightly after the beginning of the song as this is how they seem to appear in real media products. I chose my music video to be played on 'Scuzz' as it fits the genre of music that is played on this station and also relates to the other tracks that appear here.

Problems Encountered:
It took me a fair amount of time to get round to editing my music video due to the change of actor initially. However, when I was finally able to start editing, there were problems with rendering and it was taking up to 40 minutes some days for all of the clips to render. Moreover, it was eventually sorted and I was able to get my editing done on time and was not rushed into a lower standard of work .
Another problem I had was the fact that I could not get one certain clip to the right lighting. I altered all different levels of contrast and exposure etc to try and get the clip to the right levels, however my bedroom lighting that I had filmed in did me no favors and it proved near impossible to get it right. I eventually settled for the nearest lighting to best and agreed that it did fit in and was not too visible or tatty. I had audience feedback about this to settle my opinion as looking at it for a long amount of time proved that I could not find a solution. However, my peers disagreed and assured me that what I had done fitted nicely.
One other thing I recognized when editing was the occasional shakey camera when filming. I didn't think it affected my video too much and later thought it actually fitted in. I then took this up with my peers and Emma in my class said that "The shakey camera shots actually fit in quite nicely with the genre of the music video and also with the narrative. The narrative is about a drunk man who obviously has problems in his life and the shakey shots kind of help to represent that".