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

We used a lot of new technology in the creation of this product that we had not previously used for Media Studies productions. These include Sony Handycam video cameras, dollys, tripods and other equipment that assists with a filming process.  Prior to beginning the project we completed a preliminary task of creating an open day video for our school. This gave us experience in using all of this equipment in a less formal format meaning that we were able to develop skills and learn about the equipment and technology. We also learned how to convert footage from the cameras onto the video editing computers using PMB to convert the videos into WMA video files.

Here I am using a Sony Handycam on a tripod  to film shots of the lead singer for our video. 

The most beneficial part of the preliminary work was learning how to use Adobe video editing software such as Premiere Pro and After Effects. As editing is arguably the most important aspect of creating a music video it was very useful that all members of our group had previously been involved in this project. This meant that we all had sufficient knowledge of the software to be able to edit our video. We were all able to be heavily involved in the editing of the video and all had creative input.

Along with the new technology that we used during this project we also used a lot of technology that we had previously used. This included Adobe Photoshop and InDesign which we used during our foundation portfolio last year. We used these programs in the creation of our individual Ancillary tasks which developed our skills further. We were able to be very creative as we were confident in using this technology from our previous experience. We also used a Canon Powershot stills camera to take photos for our ancillary tasks which I had previously used for my foundation portfolio work.

The internet was very useful in the research and planning stage of our music video project. We researched existing products on Youtube and viewed the comments to see people's responses to them. We were able to pick out the conventions of existing music videos through watching them on the internet and this gave us a great starting point to creating our own video. We also viewed existing products similar to our ancillary tasks which meant that we were able to apply conventions to those aswell.

Finally, Blogger was also a new technology to me at the beginning of this project as i had never blogged before. However, I was able to use my knowledge of other social networking sites and bring in knowledge from A-Level ICT and quickly got the hang of it. I have used programs outside of Blogger to make my blog more interesting and interactive and have used HTML coding to embed extra multimedia features into blog posts. 

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We received a lot of positive feedback from our audience about our music video. We were very happy that they had understood the narrative of the video as this was a concern that we had from the start. We found that everyone was very clear on the story after watching the video and so we found that we had succeeded in making the narrative easy to understand.

Here is a video of an audience member who expressed opinions that were common among a lot of the target audience members who watched our video.

 

Our school held a creative arts evening in which we had a chance to play our video. We made a short speech to introduce our video and then it was played to the audience. This was very useful for us as it was 2 weeks before our final deadline and so feedback that we received on the night could impact on the final tweaks that we made to the video.


We found that people who weren't media students were very impressed by our video and couldn't think of much constructive critisism. However, fellow media students were able to offer us some suggestions to make the video better.
We received some feedback about the transitions in our video which helped us to improve in the final edit. We were told that some people felt that the video needed more transitions to improve the way it flows and fits with the song. We took this feedback into account and added some more fade transitions throughout the video which also made it more interesting to watch as well as improving the flow of the video.

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

I have recorded a podcast to answer this question:

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

When creating our product we used forms and conventions of real media products. These include the band shots and shots of the lead singer on his own singing. From my research I found that most videos would have a lead singer or a band playing in between the narrative. We decided we wanted to add to the lead singer's isolation in the narrative by having shots of him singing in a different location by himself. This meant that we challenged conventions by using many different scenes with different things going on that all come together to create one story. We have shots of our lead singer by himself as well as with the band and a narrative that also uses a lot of different ideas. This was a risk as we risked making our video difficult to understand.

We included band shots aswell as isolated shots of just the lead singer to add to the themes of the video.

In our video we use present day shots of the boy who hasn't moved on and the girl who has. We use flashbacks of the couple together when they were happy. Shots of the band and the lead singer and a whole section at the end of the video that is in the boy's imagination. This challenges conventions as we have used so many complicated ideas that are not often all used together. However, audience feedback showed that people who watch the video understand the narrative and so we think that this was a risk that has paid off. Using all of these different aspects for our video has meant that it keeps the audience interested throughout the video. Especially as the song we chose is very slow and it is difficult to keep the audience's attention for 4 minutes. 

There are a lot of different aspects to the story which we have shown through different techniques.

The idea of making a narrative video came very early on in the planning of our project. The song has a narrative to it and so we felt it was necessary to follow the narrative of the song with our video. We viewed many other music videos with narratives to inspire our own and everyone in the group had many ideas that got us off to a really good start. We viewed some videos that have a narrative that begins even before the music starts in the video. These videos included acting and dialogue and we considered using this idea in our own video. However, we eventually decided against using this convention, as the video was already going to be 4 minutes long with the song. We didn't want it to be too long which would risk losing the audience's attention. We set ourselves the challenge of making the narrative as clear as possible just using the song, narrative sequences, flashbacks and dream sequences. We added to the lead singers isolation by bringing the bandshots and the narrative together at the end and fading out the girl and his other band mates leaving him on his own. 


A main convention that we used in our video was the iconic setting. The song puts a lot of emphasis on the corner where the man is waiting for the girl to come and meet him. We decided that we wanted the corner to be in London and created this using establishing shots of the view over London from Greenwich park. We selected a spot that looked like a typical London street and made this the corner that the boy would wait by. The mise-en-scene of the area makes it look like a wealthy area of London and this goes along with the line in the song 'I'm not broke, i'm just a broken-hearted man'. The view over London appears again in the video when the boy is imagining the girl running to meet him. The fact that we have set such an iconic location for this means that it is obvious that the girl is going to find the boy. The locations for our band shots is also conventional of real media products as band shots are often set in isolated and abstract places. 

We used iconic settings which appeal to the audience and also help the narrative to be easy to understand. 

The themes of love, isolation, moving on and a harsh reality are all regular themes of modern music videos. This is because the audience can often relate to them and so will feel an empathy towards the main character of the video. 

Behind The Scenes Video

Here is a video compilation that we put together of some behind the scenes footage from the creation of our music video.

Behind The Scenes

Here is a behind the scenes video of our re-shoot. In this clip we are shooting a scene of the couple when they were happy together. These scenes will be in black and white when they are in the video to show that they are in the past.

Audience feedback and re-shoot

Following feedback from a sample of our target audience we have decided to re-shoot some parts of our music video.
The audience feedback told us the following:

• We need more band shots and singing from the start of the video.
• If we are going to use a three part split screen effect then we need to use this a few times throughout the video. 
• The man on the corner should be surrounded by possessions such as a sleeping bag, rucksack, the words on cardboard and a big picture of the girl. 
• There need to be more flashbacks of the relationship between the girl and the boy. 
• A lot of the shots in the video are too long and so we need more footage to make the video more interesting for the audience. 

Today we will be getting more footage of the boy waiting on the corner. There needs to be more activity to show that life is passing him by while he's sitting there. The sleeping bag and backpack will help to show that he's planning on staying there a long time. We are also considering creating a time lapse effect to show people passing by. We will ask our actor to look around and look anxious as though he's expecting the girl to show up at any minute. 

We will also film more flashbacks today of the girl and the boy together. We will show how happy they were together and why the boy is willing to sit on the corner and wait for her. We also plan to film some more of the girl with her friends as we would like to show that she is very busy and has moved on.