How is A2 different from As?

Our A2 project proved to be significantly different to our As project, as there was more planning and research involved this year since we had to analyze different music videos in order to produce a professional looking music video using the features of the genre which we chose. As well as this, we had to do extensive research into cd covers and magazine adverts for our digipack which was also part of our project, which we did not need to in As, since we were producing a film opening and not a music video. There were some similarities however, as we had to produce a storyboard for one of the scenes of our music video, which was made easier by the fact that we already knew how to fill them in since we had learnt about and used for As. Also, we had to complete an evaluation for our music video, which was similar to As since we had to complete an evaluation for our opening sequence of a film in As, and some of the questions we similar to the ones this year. However, filming and editing proved to be more intense this year as we had to film and edit more footage, and we encountered a couple of problems, such as the equipment for the green room not working and Final Cut Pro: the editing software we used, constantly dropping frames on our footage, caused frustration amongst us and slowed the process down.

Overall, There was quite a significant difference from As however, but nothing we couldn't handle, and A2 proved to be more enjoyable than As as we all enjoyed the filming sessions and by being given the independence to get on with our production, we were more relaxed and confident with what we were doing, which is why we were able to create a high quality, professional looking music video.

Three Days Grace - Bully [CREATED IM MEDIA CLASS]

This is our completed music video!

Evaluation: Question 1

For the 1st question, we were asked: In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
we decided to take the narrative approach to our music video because the song we chose had a lot of descriptive lyrics that we thought would be good for a music video. Since the song did not previously have a music video for it, this was also a bonus of creating a video to thias song as there was no video we had to compete with. Our music video followed many conventions of the rock genre, for example we worn black clothing throughout our music video to portray anger, which is the stereotypical dress code for this genre. Through our extensive research of music videos of the Rock genre, we were able to incorporate some of the features used in the music videos, for example we used a slow-motion effect similar to the one used in Korn's: Freak On A Leash, to emphasise the bully's anger. Also, we used a few fades to transition to various shots for the band performance as it was an effective way to cut from one shot to another. We decided on using this technique after viewing the video to Avenged Sevenfolds-Nightmare. Furthermore, we used the green screen to create a void effect using the chroma key in editing on final cut pro which is also stereotypical of this genre as may rock artists use the void effect to create the image of being in a separate world from the main parts of the video. It also put a lot of emphasis on the performers, so it gets the audience familiarised with the bands faces to help them recognize the band members easier. As well as this, we created a CCTV effect on the shot of the female bully after the 1st chorus to suggest she is being watched. The idea to do this came from the music video: "Know Your Enemy" by Greenday as similarly, they used the effect to suggest they are being watched by someone who they call the "enemy". The effect we used was effective for our music video since the location for this part of the video was down a dark Backstreet in Manchester, and there generally cameras in dark alleys and backstreets for safety purposes. However, there were various different effects that we used that made our music video different to original rock videos, such as the earthquake effect we used in the opening scene to emphasize the pain that the bully has. Also, we used the earthquake effect to emphasise the Bass in the song as it is quite voilent and powerful and to emphasise the anger and pain that the female bully has when she screams at the audience. By using the Goodwin's theory of the 6 major convenctions of a music video, we beleive we created an effective music video since the lyrics relate to what is going on visually, the use of effects such as earthquake, fades etc, relate the the song as they go with the tempo of the track. Also, we used various close ups in the video: for example, the video opens with a close up which instantly engages the audience with the subject matter and we used a variety of close ups of the band members effectively to display the the audience who they are, so that they will recognise them in future music videos.

If we were to improve this music video, we would probably spend more time focusing on the main Band performane of the music video since we did not get all the shots we wanted to originally have, such as a full band perfomance, due to the limited amount of time we had after encountering in technological issues, etc. because of this, we had to film all the band members seperately, which was not what we originally planned but we still made it fit in with the song.

Posted By Kieran Burke

evaluation question 2 part 1

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



Upon creating our poster advertising our music album we started using a black background, this is because it is an obvious stereotype of rock bands with using dark colours. We then put the main graphics, the name of the band and the ginger bread men on different layers so they dont overlap each other and overlaid seperate images over eachother. The gingerbread men image is essential to be put into use so that it shows the audience what to look for if they set out in the shops to buy this product.
Looking at other Posters and adverts for music albums, they sometime show 5star rating and also comment from big music magazines, so in this case we added names of rock music magazines and copied this onto our poster.
In advertising, the 5 star rating would help as we have set the rating between the 4-5 star rating, this in advertisement as it would show the audience that this is a good product and it's worth buying as even the music critics approve of this product.
Also, at the bottom of our poster we have applies the production companies and also added the logo for HMV as it is the leading company in music sales. We also Connected the album to the poster by also adding more of the blue/violet flames in the background of the poster.
We also added the website for the band at the bottom of the poster like most advertisement does also.
The poster would appear as an A4 spread in music magazines, mainly magazines appropriate for the music genre.

evaluation question 2 part 2

We used Photoshop to create the CD cover. Starting with a black background, we applied a suitable image (in this case the images of gingerbread men) and added this image to our CD cover. The reasong for using a black background is because it is very steriotypical of rock band album covers to have the majority of the album coloured black. The image of gingerbread men was used in particular because of the connotation of gingerbread men being something childish and innocent. However, the image displays how the gingerbread men are infact bullies and this puts a good twist to the image as bullying is something more evil and this also links in with the music video with this album as the topic is also about bullies.
We was required to create 4 tiles for our album, the 2nd tile would be where you would desplay some artwork. However it is common for albums to include the music lyrics included in the album, whe have done this also by adding the music video's lyrics to the 2nd to make use of the space available. we also added a second image that connects wityh the 1st tiles image of bully gingerbread men. And to do this i created on Photoshop the image of a headless gingerbread man as the bully victim.
The 3rd tile is the tile in which the cd would be placed. It is here that we added a different graphic of a guitar with flames. This is good for the album as it connecyts with the music genre and is a stereotypical image for rock music. We changed the colour of the flames to a blue/violet colour, this give the flames an "enchanted" look. We thought this would be a nice effect to the graphic.
The 4th tile is the Tile that required the most work. The 4th tile required to show the bar code and production companies. This lead to haveing to do more research into the band to find out the bands producers and production companies. After finding this out we then found logos of google images, and then opened them in Photoshop and applied them to the 4th tile. I also found a very nice image of a sinister looking girl on google images, with some editing of the graphic on Photoshop I applied it to the 4th tile. However, the 4th tile still looked plain so we then decided to aplpy the original albums song list to the back, this would be like any other album you would find on store shelves.

Posted By Dean

our music video analysis

we used many different shots in our music video for example during the bridge we had close ups of kierans face and during one of the verses we have long shots of kieran running all these shots we used were put in place so that we could follow some of the conventions of music videos focusing either on the surrounding area of the main character.

we added a lot of effects such as desturation and the chroma key to create the black and white and also to create the void effect using the green screen. We also made the clips short so that we could have a fast cut rate and a fast transition rate which is another convention of a music video.

The mise on scene such as the costume and location were taken into consideration as the video has a very dark meaning behind it we tried to make our video reflect that by setting some of our video in the back streets of manchester where it looks dirty and gritty had a good reflection on the dirty and gritty sound

evalutation

Question 3: What have you learned from your audiences feedback?

We interviewed a small group of our peers to get some information on what they liked, what they disliked and how we could improve our video.

Positives:

• "the angles during the parts in manchester with the girl and at the begining with the canted angles, also for the green screen where we put close ups of the singer showed good acting and convincing lip sinking at this point."
  

• "I liked the quick cut rate that went along with the beat and helps build up emotions with the audience so i think the viewers felt more connected to the video and the music together"
  

• "I thought the earthquake effects were very well implamented and helped convay the idea that this characters mental state was falling apart also the colour filters where they desaturated the clip with the boy punching the camera it makes him seem like an evil shodow it was really well done"
  
• "The narrative of the video was very creative and it worked increadibly well with the song choice it was very convincing and it matched not only the lyrics but the musics theme"
  

negatives:

• "some of the green screen editing had colour differences like when the singer first appeared you saw the white background but there were some very noticable grey flecks around him"
  
• "lip sinking during some points with the boy in the bedroom seemed a little bit lack i couldnt tell if he was saying the words or just saying something completely different"
  
• "some of the camera angles seemed amateur they did seem like they were just some kids running around with a hand held camera other than a professtional crew
  
• "lighting at points were too dark eg. the parts filmed in Manchester witht he girl where she ran away it seemed as though the the camera turned off or something it just went completely black"

Things we can do to improve:

• To combat the problems with the green screen we would need to spend more time and care when selecting the chroma key and chooseing the softness and the width of the key to get rid of the grey flecks of any other unwanted colour interferance
• To improve the lip sinking all we need to do is re shoot the scene and make sure that the actor we used adds extra emphasis on his pronounciation of the words he speaks.
• We need to take more time and concideration when picking the shots we use for the video such as which ones look professtional and which ones fail to meet that criteria.
• Also we need to put more consideration into where we set our video and that it has plenty of lighting so that there are no "balckouts" or where the audience cant understand what is going on