Ancillary tasks final

We also arranged our ancillary tasks so that they look more professional and like an actual Digipack, here is the final result:

And here is the magasine advert:

Finished - final video

We have now finished all our media coursework, after a long and stressful process it is all over! Here is the final video.

Final stages of the video

We are extremely close to finishing the music video now, just a few more minor tweaks and improvements to be made. All the extra filming is now done and we are just editing the new footage and making the final adjustments to the video.

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

Within the construction and planning stages, we used a variety of new media technologies. Ranging from Photoshop to Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro (used on professional texts such as Jarhead: 2005 and Burn After Reading: 2008). This really helped us create something much more professional than if we were using a sub-par editing software.

In addition to this, we used digital video cameras and at some points an HD video recorder and microphone. This helped us get much more professional looking shots, which we then exported to DV and edited using Final Cut Pro.

The use of Final Cut was beneficial to our progress. With the vast amount of editing it took to get our video to the standard it is, it would have been useless without the hugely beneficial Final Cut.

Evaluation Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Having posted our video on Youtube, some comments have already been given. We welcomed 'constructive criticism' and one person left a hugely helpful comment as seen below:

We took this into consideration, and got some more footage of the band and performance shots, which we then edited into the final product and it does look a lot more professional.

In addition to this, we did some written interviews on some members of the target audience (an 18 year old indie fan and a 19 year old indie fan, William Gamble and Jon Anscombe.) Here's what they had to say.

What would you offer as some constructive criticism to improve the video?

W.Gamble: 'The video is awesome; but it would be much more effective if you had some more shots of the artists playing instruments... its kind of lacking in that area'

J.Anscombe: 'I agree with Will, also you should take into consideration the location. Its kind of obvious that some bits were filmed in the school music room, and that ruins the feel of the video.'

These are very important points that we took into consideration. We learned that we really should have taken the mise-en-scene into consideration much earlier on in the process. Nevertheless we managed to re-film most of the shots and indeed got much more shots of the performance pieces to improve the video, as this is what the audience asked for.

Evaluation Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and Ancillary tasks?

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

Our product uses very similar shots in comparison to other similar texts. This means that it uses the same conventions, as well as developing them in different styles.

For instance; we have used a variety of different narrative-based shots, as well as a mixture of some performance shots. This is very similar to other texts such as The Pigeon Detectives video for their song 'i'm not sorry' as well as Franz Ferdinand's music videos 'The Dark of the Matinee' and 'Michael'. Nevertheless; the shots that they incorporate are of whole bands and groups, whereas we have challenged this typical convention and used individual members at each point. This helps denote the singularity that the song 'Friday Nights' is about, loneliness and boredom. The use of the band members rather than constant narrative shots helps relate to the target audience. This is done in other texts so the audience will recognise who the band is and be more inclined to watch/buy/listen to the product. Therefore we implemented this in our own work. As a result of this, we have two narrative-based shots from the music video and two performance shots within our digipack. This really helps link the video to the band and will attract the audience, as done with other similar indie texts. Here are some examples of where we saw the instrument and band shots in other videos, and implemented it into our own work:

As you can see, the guitar shots are very similar, however we felt it looked more effective with a closer angle to the head of the guitar, looking down the neck, rather than teh Franz Ferdinand version. This suggests that we have developed the stereotypical convention of the video.

As well as narrative within the indie genre, experimental shots is also very important. Songs such as 'Meanwhile' by the Mystery Jets use screen-splits in order to create meaning, therefore we thought it would be relevant to try and implement this into our own work. The four screen split was inspired by a past A2 music video for The Vixens song ‘Voodoo Child’. However we have developed this idea and used some half-splits throughout the video as well. Here is an example of the screen-split, and our own work that was influenced by it.

These shots are very similar, nevertheless we felt it looked more effective with two splits rather than three, as the footage we had did not really fit very well with three seperate shots. This shows that we have used the convention, but also developed it.

Again these are very similar, we didnt feel the need to change anything with our shot as it already matched very well and looked good. Therefore we just used the convention and did not adapt it.

The themes connoted in indie music videos are usually extremely similar. The Pigeon Detectives - 'I'm not sorry', the Arctic Monkeys - 'When the sun goes down', Franz Ferdinand - 'Michael' and the Mystery Jets - 'Meanwhile' all connote the same themes. Depression, sadness, loneliness and boredom. Therefore we went for similar connotations within our video. We used shots of the protagonist at work and at home being extremely fed up with life and his job. We also edited the shots into black and white (influenced by the Pigeon Detectives and the Arctic Monkeys' which further denotes the same meaning, depression. Here are some examples of similar shots that we used for influence (and our own work):

This shows very similar denotations and connotations of the workplace, both our protagonist and the one in the similar text are looking extremely fed up with every day life.

This all suggests that our product uses a great variety of conventions from other similar texts, however there are some points in which we develop these conventions and also challenge them in some areas.