1. 'In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?' (Part One)

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

1. A shot that shows a link between lyrics and/or music and visuals
"I'm not alone" is along with "Everywhere" the most repeated lyric. We wanted to show that in a way that she writes "I'm not alone" on a canvas/wall. The link between visuals and lyrics is very clear.

2. A shot that typifies the way a record company would want their artist to be represented.

The artist is in good lighting as well as in a higher position as the camera which can be seen as a higher status.

3. a shot that illustrates how your video uses music genre.
This scene represents a typical rock genre type of set up with the main vocalist at the front and the band behind her.

Like in this performance the main vocalist is at the front and the rest of the band is behind him.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Otherside (live)

4. a shot that shows an intertextual reference
This intertextual reference is of a film called Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei (The Edukators) and in this film there is a scene where two of the three main characters write something onto a wall (also in red colour)


Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei (The Edukators)

5. a shot that demonstrates your use of camera
In this shot I follow Angelicas hand as she is painting onto the paper. It is a simple but effective following shot.

6. a shot that demonstrates your use of lighting
In this shot is the lighting very nice and I like how it really fits to the mood of the beginning of the music video.

7. a shot that demonstrates your use of mise-en-scene
In this shot we have framed it so that we can see a bit of the paining on the wall, the paint bottle, and Angelica's legs, to tell the audience what is going to happen. Angelica is getting the bottle and will 'destroy' he painting.

8/9. Two shots which you feel demonstrate something which shows you have watched other music videos

This shot of Liam, is a typical shot of a guitarist which is often used in music videos. I found a similar shot in one of The Kooks music videos:

The Kooks - Always Where I Need To Be


This shot of me, is also a shot that is often used in music videos. I also found a similar shot in one of Mando Diao's music videos:

Mando Diao - Gloria

1. 'In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?' (Part Two)

1. (2) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?

1. a shot that shows a link between lyrics and/or music and visuals

In this song Swift sings: "You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess" and at this point there is the literal meaning of it, he's the prince and she's the princess.
Taylor Swift - Love Story

2. a shot that typifies the way a record company would want their artist to be represented

In this particular shot of the music video, Cyrus is presented in a very dream like way, and the setting is very dreaminess, which addresses the audience who is watching something like this.
Miley Cyrus - The Climb

3. a shot that illustrates how the video uses music genre

This shot show a band playing a heavy metal song, and the setting is telling us what the genre of this music is very well, because they have put in massive flames that explode in the background.
Savatage - Gutter Ballet

4. a shot that shows an intertextual reference

This shot shows an intertextual reference very well, because there is a comic hand coming out of the comic and interfering with the real world. The intertextual reference in this music video are of course comic books.
A-ha - Take On Me

5. a shot that demonstrates the use of camera

In this video there are many shots that are going towards the main vocalist, there is also a lot of in and out of focus moments in this music video.
Beck - Lost Cause

6. a shot that demonstrates the use of lighting

In this shot is the lighting used very nicely, because the fountains really stand out and that gives this scene a good atmosphere.
3OH!3 - STARSTRUKK ft. Katy Perry

7. a shot that demonstrates the use of mise-en-scene

I like this shot a lot. It is framed perfectly and therefore used many times in the video. It is also the main location of the video. The microphone is centered, next to it the disco ball, and then the two performers one of them not as much in the picture as the main vocalist (on the right). Which shows that he is probably more recognisable and that's why he is more in the picture than the guitarist.
Taenacious D - Tribute

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

These pictures show the similarities and relations between the ancillary products and the music video.

This picture how I used the same setup for the Digipak, Poster, and video. I did that because I wanted to make clear that everything relates to each other and that the target audience sees that everything is of the same artist.

This picture shows how the video and the digipak inside look similar to each other.
Because my video is very performance based, I wanted to make a different inside than the outside. As you can see I have used different set ups of the different performances.

This picture shows how the picture of the digipak front and back is also in the music video.
I found this shot very stunning because only the drop in the middle is in focus and the others are out of focus, because I like this shot so much, I thought that it should be the front and back cover of the digipak. I also wanted to have the poster, video, and digipak to be recognised as one whole, I did not use a performance bit for the front cover of this digipak.

This picture shows the font similarities between the poster and the digipak.
As you can see I used the same font for 'The Spirit Room' in the poster and the digipak, another font for the artists name (same on both, digipak, and poster), then I used a font that was similar the the artists name and wrote the release date.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

1. class and teacher feedback on your initial treatment:
1.
•Obvious concept
•Band?
•Like the idea - approval?
•locations?
2.
•I like the dream idea
•Camera shots should be effective
•How will you get water dripping from the celling?
•Writing on the wall will be effective
•I like the first ending better (all a dream)
•Sounds like it will be a very effective video.
•Good ideas guys.
3.
•Good location
•Nice story plot!
•How you do water effect?
•Cool interest in editing (fast pace)
•Sound calm and relaxed get some good shots with that idea
4.
•Good idea
•Where will you film?
5.
•How will the water drop from the ceiling?
•I like Elliott's idea for the second half
6.
•Good concepts
•water drops? A bit typical
•The Master (dr. who) nice touch!
•Prefer 1st ending
•Bus filming?
7.
•I like the idea of the two different story lines.
•Good idea having two ideas for the song.
8.
•Good idea - performance - dream
•Canvas idea is amazing.
•Water idea maybe difficult
•Imagery is good
•multiple endings
9.
•Performance & story mix is good
•Story is good
•Linking lyrics with video
10.
•Good idea of the dream
•Canvas - Brilliant
•I like the trickery idea.


When we received this feedback, we knew that we had to make some changes, for example, leave out the water dropping idea, because most of them either did not like the idea of it or found it to boring.
Looking back, I feel that because we changed a lot of the music video ideas, the water dropping would have not fitted in the final video anyway.

2. rough cut- class feedback and teacher feedback:
Strengths:
•I like the start of the 'Painting' bit.
•I like the opening with the stage curtains opening.
•Build up tension with painting, Performance is convincing, opening on stage.
•great cuts, great footage.
•Smooth cuts + variety of shots, good use of lighting.
•good shots.
•shot and camera movement, lighting.
•I like how he uses quick shots in between the painting and the performance, shots are nice.
•The painting 'I'm not alone' is really cool.
•Nice use of cut-aways, lots of varied and interesting shots used, good lipsynching, I like how the footage goes out of focus at the beginning.
•Fade transition from stage to Liam, usage of high angle shot of Angelica.
•mise-en-scene.
•Good lighting.
•The performances are convincing.
•Good lipsynch, lighting.

Weaknesses:
•Could have more shots from different set ups.
•Brought the band performance in too soon.
•a 30 seconds add effect or something make camera look less shaky
•closeups.
•drummer looks lost.
•lipsync needs tweaking.
•drummer looks lost.
•lip syncing.
•Maybe some use of lighting cutaways.
•We don't find out what she's painting. Will this come later?
•using three out of four locations straight away, should slow down.
•Cutting on a shots only half on Angelica, and shorting a shot with her laughing.
•performer.
•shots to ground at 0:32 needs to be cut sooner.
•need to sort out drummer performance.
•Drummer needs to be synced in fine or something.
•Use variety of footage.
•add more shots.


After I received the feedback for my first rough cut, I changed a lot. I took the feedback seriously and worked on nearly everything that was suggested and what seemed to be reasonable, I used more lighting cutaways, improved the lipsynching, added effects to make it less shaky, and so on.
Here is the first rough cut and the final version to compare:

3. class feedback on your digipack roughs:
•Composition: Well good; especially the front cover
•Colour: the colours are a tiny bit dull but not boring, which is good!
•Typography: Really interesting and unique.
•Poster is really cool.
•The poster works well
•Typography: the font looks nice and it works well with the front cover.
•Colour: it has a variety of colours.
•Love the poster
•Siiik front cover.
•like the font.


When I received this feedback, I knew that I am heading to the right direction. They liked the typography a lot, that is why I used the same font (of the poster, saying EVERYWHERE) in the final digipak and the final poster.

Here are the digipak and poster rough cuts they looked at:






4. final version of everything- class feedback and feedback from anyone else:

Class feedback:
•Very good. i like the fast cuts and the variety of shots!
•Nice lighting, and really good cuts, i like the paint :)
very good
•this video has a very sylish video. i like the effect that the lighting has and the editing goes well with the pace of the music.
•good lipsync, nice lighting at the beginning. Paint = wow! + well placed. -Hannah & Charna
•The heavy emphasis on the performance works super well :D
•great lighting. love the change from angelica to sven. great editing
•good opening, but the light shot at 20 seconds in is blinding. like the painting scenes.

Other feedback I received:

•sweet as! but i.m more the negative type of person ;) SO: shadow of mic in singers face and she.s covering the 'AL' of 'alone' what makes it 'i.m not one'. is this some hidden (schizo) info or without any meaning? :P

•awesome! :D is that you playing bass? especially like the difference from the dark room to the brighter outside.

•lighting excellent, cuts to band very good, nice glint on paint, wide shot on paint very good, use of blur and focus very good

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

For this project I used several new media technologies. As you can see in the picture, for filming the music video I used a Sony HD camera, a tripod, a Sony wide angled lens, and a microphone.
For playing the song while we were filming (to lipsynch correctly) we used portable speakers, and we played the song with either an iPhone or an audio recorder.
To edit I used an Apple Mac computer and the editing software Final Cut Express.
To upload the footage I used an firewire cable, and to transfer the music from the iPhone/Audio Recorder to the portable speakers I used an Audio cable.
To research I used the web-browser Firefox, to create the word clouds I used Wordle.net, and to blog I used Blogger.com.

Final music video

This is my final music video edit:

What I would change

When I would have had more time for this project I would change these things:

• Have more band performance coverage, not only from front, side, and handheld.
• Have the band performing at a different location, eg outdoors like the park.
• Actually use the wide angle lens more often.
• Play around with special effects to put over the video.
• Put more references into the video, like a certain type of shot, costume, props, that are known for a person or style.
  
• Use lighting in a more effective way.
• Use our initially ideas (could have been interesting).
• Use more props.
• Have more cutaways in the video.

Digipak

This is my final digipak.
The outside differs from the inside. That is firstly because I wanted to make the front and the back of the digipak recognisable with the poster, and secondly I wanted that it is clear that the digipak also relates to the mostly band performanced music video, that means that all of my products connect through the digipak, which is the reason why the music video and the magazine advert are made, to sell the digipak.
The CD's also relate to the outside. I also put the same effect over all the pictures used so that it is, again, recognisable.
Same fonts are used as in the magazine advert and on the inside and outside of the digipak.

Poster

This is my final magazine advert. I chose to have the main picture of the artist in the advert so that the audience knows from who the digipak is. I also put an picture of the actual digipak front on the advert to show the audience how the digipak looks like and that they have an idea of what to look for when buying this digipak.
I also used the same font for the albums name 'The Spirit Room' and the same font of the artists name.
The quotes on the advert are there to convince the viewer that this album is an important one to have.
The release date shows the audience when the digipak is released.
The poster has the same effect put over the picture as the digipak to show the audience that it is of the same artist/producer.

roughcut 3 structure

Today I carried on editing my music video and made the basic outline/structure of the video. I will edit the specific shots on Friday. Here is the video:

'EVERYWHERE' ROUGH CUT 3 sven from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

I will edit some more shots of Angelica destroying/painting over the 'I'm not alone' canvas in the middle of the video, because at the moment there is just too much band performance in the middle of the video. I find that the structure is okay a the moment but I need to make the certain shots more interesting with effects or movement or something else. It seems to me that it is a bit too dull at the moment.

roughcut 2 improved upon feedback

Today I carried on editing my music video and did some work on my digipak.
Here is the second rough cut of my video:

'EVERYWHERE' ROUGH CUT 2 sven from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

I changed the opening of it, now I only have one location at the beginning and then when the music kicks in I introduce the second location and then the first location will not be shown again. After location 2 is well into the video I introduce the second location, this time story based, not performance based. This is basically what I did this morning. I now have to hurry a bit because it has to be done by Friday which is not long away.

This is the cover and back of my digipak (what I have done today, so far). I will add some more bits to it, it is not finished yet:

roughcut feedback from class

This morning we reviewed the roughcuts of everyone and wrote about their strengths and weaknesses. Here is my feedback for my roughcut:

Strengths:

• I like the start of the 'Painting' bit.
• I like the opening with the stage curtains opening.
• Build up tension with painting, Performance is convincing, opening on stage.
• great cuts, great footage.
• Smooth cuts + variety of shots, good use of lighting.
• good shots.
• shot and camera movement, lighting.
• I like how he uses quick shots in between the painting and the performance, shots are nice.
• The painting 'I'm not alone' is really cool.
• Nice use of cut-aways, lots of varied and interesting shots used, good lipsynching, I like how the footage goes out of focus at the beginning.
• Fade transition from stage to Liam, usage of high angle shot of Angelica.
• mise-en-scene.
• Good lighting.
• The performances are convincing.
• Good lipsynch, lighting.

Weaknesses:

• Could have more shots from different set ups.
• Brought the band performance in too soon.
• a 30 seconds add effect or something make camera look less shaky
• closeups.
• drummer looks lost.
• lipsync needs tweaking.
• drummer looks lost.
• lip syncing.
• Maybe some use of lighting cutaways.
• We don't find out what she's painting. Will this come later?
• using three out of four locations straight away, should slow down.
• Cutting on a shots only half on Angelica, and shorting a shot with her laughing.
• performer.
• shots to ground at 0:32 needs to be cut sooner.
• need to sort out drummer performance.
• Drummer needs to be synced in fine or something.
• Use variety of footage.
• add more shots.

I am taking in the feedback I got today and will improve my video.

'EVERYWHERE' ROUGH CUT

This is my rough cut for the music video:

Elliott and I are making two different cuts of the music video because we both have different ideas and endings.

I think that I need to change my music video a bit because it is not very clear that the stage and the band performance room are different locations. Otherwise I like how it looks at this stage.

this morning

we looked at different digipaks which were brought in by Elliott, Yasmin, Sophie, and Angelica.
It was interesting to see how different digipaks can be, because the one Elliott brought with him was a standard one which had 1 CD and 1 booklet with lyrics in it, and Sophie brought one in which was like a book with several items in it. Yasmin's one was just one with a CD and Angelica brought in a special DVD.

Digipak and Poster DRAFT FEEDBACK

My feedback was as following:

• Composition: Well good; especially the front cover
• Colour: the colours are a tiny bit dull but not boring, which is good!
• Typography: Really interesting and unique.
• Poster is really cool.

• The poster works well
• Typography: the font looks nice and it works well with the front cover.
• Colour: it has a variety of colours.

• Love the poster
• Siiik front cover.
• like the font.

Here are the drafts they looked at:

Digipak draft:

Poster draft:

I am really surprised that they liked my digipak because I just took print screens of our test shoot and put a filter over it. It wasn't much work and I don't like it very much but I will recreate something like that when the music video is finished.

I will work on the colour a bit more because it seemed that they are a bit dull (for the digipak) I think that I will also use different location pictures so that the digipak varies a bit more. I will use bits of the footage we shot with the canvas location because i think that the red and the paint will look really good on the digipak.

Todays shoot

Today we shot the canvas performance behind the college.
We found a nice wall that looked like it would fit into our music video. Elliott brought n alternative canvas and paint with him. we then set the scene up and got Angelica to paint 'I'm not alone' onto the sheet of paper while we filmed it from different angles. We also run through a performance in front of the canvas which is the part in the video when she sings 'I'm not alone'.
I think that today went really well and that we got lots of interesting shots which I will definitely use in the music video.

Friday's shoot

On Friday we shot the performance bit of our music video. Elliott brought Glen with him and we also asked Liam and Angelica if they could also take part in it and they said yes.
So we now had only one person missing for the electric bass part so I suggested that I could do that.

It was as following:
Angelica - lead vocalist
Liam - Lead guitarist
Glen - Drums
Me - Bass and with Elliott directing.
Camera - Elliott.

And though we only had a limited time for borrowing the instruments, I think we did a great job.

While Elliott and Angelica did some stage shots later that day and they did not really need me for this part I thought I could help Tom B. and Max out with their music video, and helped them filming it.

Todays Plan

Elliott has bought some red paint and big sheets which we need for the saturdays shoot. He has also managed to get a few people who can play in the performance bit, which is very good. The last thing that is missing from letting us shoot today is that we need the main vocalist, a girl/women who knows the lyrics of the song and who is up for letting us film her.
We wanted to shoot the performance bit today and the story on Saturday.

Plan for tomorrow and Saturday

We will be filming tomorrow and on sunday. We decided to change the beginning of our video and have more band performance in it because that is what makes a music video more exiting.

We won't be having a bedroom anymore and will concentrate on the park. We also will be filming the canvas outside somewhere at a wall.

Here's the edited first bit of the new treatment:

The video begins with the singer sitting down in an empty location, playing an acoustic guitar, singing to the beginning of the song. Camera shots mostly on her face and guitar, and a wide of the whole body. Intercut with the park location. falling asleep next to a tree. When the singers eye is closed, begin a filter that makes the situation seem more dream like, she is waking up and he is next to her but she cant see him, when she turns over to look at him he disappears.

she begins to get up and walk around the park. lots of close ups of her waking up and walking around.

'cause every time i look you're never there - is sung at the park. CU of face

And every time i sleep you're always there - pull to her face and out again change in location (Park to stage)

'cause you're everywhere to me and when i close my eyes its you i see... - band is playing with her on the stage.

All we need to do now is to buy an alternative canvas (because a real canvas would be to expensive) some thing like a bed sheet, and red paint. We also need to find someone else who could act instead of chloe because she can't anymore because of her media coursework, we also need to ask Rob, Max and Liam to play in the Band.

Request for this weekend

We would like to have a camera, a tripod, a wide lens, for the weekend. That is because we will film a bit of the music video (performance) on friday and the story bit of the video on Saturday/Sunday because the performance bit is inside and the story is mostly outside and on friday the forecast tells us that it will be raining which means that we only can film on the saturday when the weather is better.

Lyrics

"Everywhere"

Turn it inside out so I can see

The part of you that's drifting over me

And when I wake you're, you're never there

But when I sleep you're, you're everywhere

You're everywhere

Just tell me how I got this far

Just tell me why you're here and who you are

'Cause every time I look

You're never there

And every time I sleep

You're always there

'Cause you're everywhere to me

And when I close my eyes it's you I see

You're everything I know

That makes me believe

I'm not alone

I'm not alone

I recognize the way you make me feel

It's hard to think that

You might not be real

I sense it now, the water's getting deep

I try to wash the pain away from me

Away from me

'Cause you're everywhere to me

And when I close my eyes it's you I see

You're everything I know

That makes me believe

I'm not alone

I'm not alone

I am not alone

Whoa, oh, oooh, oh

And when I touch your hand

It's then I understand

The beauty that's within

It's now that we begin

You always light my way

I hope there never comes a day

No matter where I go

I always feel you so

'Cause you're everywhere to me

And when I close my eyes it's you I see

You're everything I know

That makes me believe

I'm not alone

'Cause you're everywhere to me

And when I catch my breath

It's you I breathe

You're everything I know

That makes me believe

I'm not alone

You're in everyone I see

So tell me

Do you see me?

Test footage 2 - different lens types

In this test footage we tried out different lens types.

The one we were using when we were filming me was a wide angle lens and the one we used while filming Elliott was the standard lens that came with the camera.

We really had to move back when filming Elliott to have the same picture as with the wide angle lens. It made a big difference to use the wide angle lens and I think that we will be using it alot in our music video.

Digipak mockup

This is the half-term catch up I did on tuesday.

We had to create a mock up of our digipak consisting from our test footage.

I used a filter on the pictures to make it more interesting.

Half-term drafts

I did these sketches over half-term for the preperation for the poster and digipak.

Poster:

Digipak inside:

Digipak front:

Digipak back:

Half term homework preperation

Today I am going to prepare my half term homework.

I am recreating the record label for the Digipak.

Here is the original Michelle Branch record label:

And this is what I created in Photoshop:

I chose to have a bull in the record label because maverick is also an open range animal.

I also created a poster that I would like to recreate over the half term with my own picture.

8-10 feb.

I wasn't in the first two days of this week because I was ill. Unfortunately I missed the test shooting Elliott did on his own.

He found someone who I think fits to the music video very well. I think we are going to have Chloe for the lead vocalist in the music video.

Here is the test footage they have done:

I really like the location where the graffiti is the hand held camera style also fits this location very well.

I think that they have a brilliant job, acting and shooting like.

1-5 Feburary

This week was the pre-visualisation week for our music video. We had a look at different music videos and how many set-ups there were used apart from the performance set-up. We also looked at how the music correlates to the video and made our own storyboards and animatics.

We watched a music video by Caro Emerald:


and we were given set-up sheets to list our own set-ups and cutaways.
Elliott and I thought of different ideas for the cutaways and set-ups here are some pictures of the set-ups we came up with:

(sorry the pictures don't work at the moment I will try to upload them later.)

We also looked at how the music waves can correlate (but not have to) to the music video. Sometimes music video directors cut their videos to the beat on purpose to create a special effect to the video. But often music video directors do not cut to the beat so that the video is not so predictable.



This is Elliott and me working out the timeline.

Towards the end of this week I drew a part of the music video as part of the storyboard.
But before we made the storyboards properly we had to work out shot we want in our video to occur. So we made a post-it storyboard/shotlist:



The post-it storyboard.

After we done the post-it storyboard I drew the proper storyboard.
Here are the pictures of approximately 40s worth of music video as storyboard.



(Sorry you have to click onto the pictures to see them completely)

As you can see the storyboard contains colour as well as some camera directions to set the scenes and make it more enjoyable to look at.


On Friday we created the animatic out of the storyboard. First thing I did was to take pictures of every single frame I drew and upload them into final cut.
We then put them onto the timeline and set markers where we want to have the set-up changed. We then arranged a few pictures we thought would be better at this certain point and cut them to the length we wanted them to be.

Here is the finished animatic:

I think that I did really well this week because I have done so much stuff and helped to get this music video to a better standard. I can clearly see now where this project is going because of the pre-visualisation week.