Final Cut

Deep Enough - Final Cut

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udYovThQIgM&feature=share

Evaluation #2

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




Our video, album art and poster are all linked together with the same style, this style being Indie Rock, we researched different types of videos, album art and posters within the genre and decided that Arctic Monkeys videos and album art on 'Favourite Worst 

Nightmare' and 'Whatever people say I am thats what I'm not'.

To decide what pictures we wanted for our digipack and poster, we had a photoshoot where we took the band to a variety of places we had previously located, such as the canal, subway and field, this is because, as there was nothing around we got across the conventions of the 'Indie' band being occasionally 'moody' yet funny in the way most teens act.

Our Digipack

As our group are 'Indie' they are stereotyped to be 'moody' as seen in the bottom right picture in our digipack.Yet in the top left picture the fun side comes across well. The album cover and back are quite serious and moody with the stern looks in the bands faces, yet , the other pictures are more light heartened, with the band, 'messing around' in the trees and on the steps.


The bottom left picture, is unique as Sophie in our group does art and designed a logo unique to the band and is a mixture of images through the bands name 'Naked Voyage'.

As the band memebers are all quite alike they all have quite the same dress sense, which also conforms to a typical Indie band, with a green parker, skinny jeans etc....again compared with Arctic Monkeys.

No props were really needed in portraying our band, but we though for the humourous side to them, we would add a mini telescope and 3D glasses, whilst shooting the band, they were also seen smoking, seen to be 'cool' and drinking, again both stereotypically seen in Indie Rock 
music videos.


                                                                     Stairs in the video that are featured in the album cover

Mise en scene again links with our research into the typical indie band, and we didn't need to change our band much as they were already quite like  the bands you'd see in the charts
We shot the band on the canal, where the scenery was dark and quite mysterious, much like Naked Voyage and what they try to come across as, yet comical also as the scenes when not band footage are just 'messing' around. We also film the live recording at lower house canteen, a local function room where it was clear to see that the crowd enjoyed and engaged with the music and as it was their first released video, we decided to shoot a live footage and some parts of the band in their natural ways, so that the audience could then again relate with the band.


The theme of the dark, yet humerous band is apparent through all of our work, the dark song contrasts with the funny band footage around the canal, we have pictures with a certain dark mood contrasted on the album cover and with the band having fun, also with a comical look between two band members in the top middle picture.  

The title of the album is 'Third Side Of The Coin', there are no directly linked songs on the album, to the album name but this is what we wanted to portray using the metaphor to make people think about a third side to a coin which is impossible and different and thats what the band wanted to be.


All of the pictures were edited on Adobe Photoshop, this way we could make the pictures look like how we wanted them to look, by changing, contrast and brightness, putting different camera filters and effects on, like sepia. Also changing the colours like the bottom left picture, it looks much more bright green. Giving a different effect.

The location fits with the work and the Indie Rock genre as none of the places like the canal or park are overly dramatised, it is true and gritty, which works best with the British indistution, knowing that the British public will want that 'realness' and humour off the band.

Evaluation #4

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






During the whole process of our media production, I was blogging everything we did on blogspot.com from the research, to planning and storyboarding and then our final product and feedback.

Through the research and planning stages, we used Google to research into the music industry and find typical conventions of the different genres of music videos, from the earliest of The Beatles and Michael Jackson, to the modern chart music of Rihanna and Example.  

After looking at a few videos on YouTube, and deciding that we wanted to use the Indie Rock genre, after watching 'Teddy Picker' by Arctic Monkeys (our inspiration). It was also useful to see different peoples feedback, so that our video would suit what people like to see in Indie music videos.

We also had to look at the generic conventions of album covers and posters, again using google to do this then posted previously in my blog. When doing this we found a variety of styles and uses of mise en scene in the Indie Rock genre. Some like the 'Arctic Monkeys' use humour and novelties on their album, which puts across that their own image is irrelevant to the music, but they don't want to be seen as 'boring'. Then others like 'The Smiths' and 'The Libertines' like to show the band members, their clothing often looks effort less and thrown together, again showing there is not much interest into image.
For our album art, we decided as the project is for an up and coming band, we would use a picture of the band to show who they are.

In the early stages of planning when choosing where to film and do our photoshoot, we took the stills camera out and took a variety of pictures where is would be possible to shoot and fit in with what we drew on our storyboards and the image we wanted to put across.

As on my iPhone I had a few camera effect apps, with different filters and styles, we decided that I would film some footage on that, which was good as other groups didn't have this opportunity and we could explore different techniques, using an old camera style made it have the 'Indie' effect. 


When filming for the video we did mostly use the DV Camera and tripod, which we got our wanted rushes on.

In the editing suite, using Adobe Premier.

Example of fading

When we came to editing our video we used Adobe Premier, where we made the footage 
look like a music video, with this program we were able to also add different effects such as fading, old film technique, also speeding the footage up to add comedy.


Editing our pictures for the album and poster was done on Adobe Photoshop, with this we had better editing techniques at our disposal. 


Like this picture; needed the light taking out and the change in camera filter makes it look more effective and again in the bands indie image.

As we came to getting feedback for our project we also used new media social sites, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. As seen on the feedback question.

Poster

yet to be edited

Evaluation #3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?


There are many reasons for having feedback when evaluating work, this is because:

• Helps highlight the relationship between the audience and the distributer. 
• Makes the product relevant and suited to the audience.
• Can identify problems and things that need to be changed.
• Improvement on performance
• More motivation.

Firstly to receive feedback on our video we uploaded it to YouTube:

From this screen grab of our video posted on YouTube, you can see we have had 173 views, and counting. We also received 6 likes and 1 dislike, although as there were no comments on the video, it didn't really help us progress any further  because there were no pointers to help us improve. But overall it is clear the video was liked.

As we didn't get much feedback from YouTube, we then put our video on Facebook:

Although on the various posts of the video we got a total of 29 likes, and good positive feedback, again we couldn't alter anything because there wasn't anything constructive. This could be because posting it on Facebook means all of our friends are going to see it, and therefore automatically say they like it.

We also posted a video on Twitter but didn't get any feedback for it.

So, overall from the feedback we did get, I learnt that people did enjoy the video and thought that it looked like a regular Indie Rock music video. 

If I was to go about getting feedback again, I would interview people after watching our video with questions whether they liked it and if they thought that it was conforming to the Indie genre, and then upload the pictures to our blogs.

DTP Work

Evaluation #1

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


Within our project we are working and filming with Naked Voyage, who are an Indie Rock 4 piece band, Tom Turner (Lead vocals and guitar) Tom Entwhistle (Base guitar) Dean Molenyeux (Drums)  Daniel Hobbs (Lead guitar). In the Indie genre, most music videos are more performance based and have the theme of lads messing around. Also focusing the style of an Indie Rock band, looking like they don't care, clothing links for the band members tend to be of similar nature so they look like they are they are together, but not so they look like a pop boy band. Indie Rock band music videos don't focus on being mainstream or effective, but mostly just the bands being themselves or performing.

We designed a music video based on the coventions we have with the  British Indie Rock bands. All the footage for our music video was just of the four band members of 'Naked Voyage': Tom Turner, Dean Molyneux, Danny Hobbs and Tom Entwistle. We filmed the lads as normal Indie bands do, a live performance contrasted with them messing around in everyday settings, just being themselves. By doing this, the music video had an element of humour, showing their personalities of doing day to day things together with slightly rebellious behaviour to enlighten Indie behaviour, which an audience of this nature like. We used a variety of props to pull of this 'look' of Indie rebellion which were: a mini telescope, cigarettes, vodka bottles all to give the connotations that the band are rebellious and like having fun. Many of the Indie Rock Bands also do this, such as Artic Mokeys another British Indie Rock Band, whom started of small making videos and broadcasting them on YouTube which then led them to fame. As Arctic Monkeys were a big influence on Naked Voyage, the two bands are very similar with quirky lyrics, an element of rebellion and a good chemistry within the bands and also the styling.

Similarities between the Bands, Naked Voyage, Arctic Monkeys.

When storyboarding our music video, we decided to use all the conventions on and Indie Rock video as we thought it would be more successful this way, and so we filmed Naked Voyage doing a live performance, practising and also messing around and just being themselves, with no gimics, we knew this would work also, as it does in many Arctic Monkeys videos.

When editing with Adobe Premier we speeded the footage up which made it humerous, fast paced and exciting, the video has quick cuts between the contrasting scences which I think from feedback and personal opinion makes it less boring. It also fits with the song as it is also a fast paced upbeat song. We also reversed some footage to make it look like on of the band members was jumping backwards...again for humour.
                                   


                                          

This shot works quite well as Dean runs on the roundabout in time with the music which is also quite funny.

These two shots from our music video and one of Arctic Monkeys have the same low angle looking up to the base gutiarists, show similarites in the practising side to the video.

When producing out music video we decided to do a live version to add the Indie atmosphere and give a full effect of being in the audience so these two shots of the lead singers are different yet still give emphasis on the lead singer.

To give an authenticity to the audience that our band were playing the instruments and it wasn't fake we, like Arctic Monkeys decided to use a close up of the guitarist playing the instrument, obviously to the beat.

In most Indie videos, the band members are in everyday situations and places which pulls off the effortlessness they have, as these two screen grabs show the bands just walking around:

As there is a big emphasis on the bands instruments, it seeming 'cool' we also decided to put singular shots of the band members doing what they do!

Although there aren't gimics in Indie videos, one of the band members brought along some props to filming, as he thought it could be funny, and with the use of his mini telescope we could fit it with part of the lyrics.

'almost as if she's looking right at me'

which works effectively, as well as being quiet funny.

The main way in which we wanted to challenge the Indie Rock genre was to do the live performance, this was because it isn't done within this genre, yet we thought it could make an audience feel the experience you would have at one of Naked Voyages gigs with the noise of the audience in the background enjoying the music, and also this is how people start off, uploading their live versions, giving the 'real' effect to listeners, creating a fan base whom like their music.

When doing the advertising poster and Digi Pack we didn't want to over do it with graphics of glitz as we wanted people to have the generic connotations of an Indie Band, so we decided to keep it simple, as do Arcitc Monkeys.

Yet a difference we had is that on our poster, we thought it was effective to use just a picture of the drummer Dean, whom is stood at the top of some stairs, not looking at the camera, we edited it on Photoshop to look dark and mysterious as thats what we wanted to pull of, we though it was a refreshing idea, rather than have a group band photo, which are already featured on the album art.

Simulary, we wanted to keep the DTP work, simple yet effective again, for the front and back cover to have a certain Indie 'moodyness' about it with the use of editing the colour to a kind of sepia tint, yet inside the album, the pictures would be vibrant and fun, as on one we edited in the trees, there is a lot of bright green colours as the members play fight, showing their fun side.

Most Indie bands do like simplicty on their album art, like Arctic Monkeys 'Suck it and See'


Although we didn't want to overdo it on editing so it wouldn't fit with the conventions of a generic Indie Rock album art, we chose not to keep it this simple, as our band were a new band and didn't have the same reputaion as Arctic Monkeys, and we wanted people to know who our band was, and thats why we used a group photo.