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.

Rough edit of video (before feedback)

Here is our first edit of the music video. This is before we got some constructive criticism and before we changed a few parts with the band shots.

Evaluation Question 2

For this question we have decided to create a video, with us talking over the top. We will have our music video in the background and will put in images of our ancillary tasks throughout the video with us reading through the answer to the question

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

We have created a Music Video, Magazine advert and Digipack for the song ‘Friday Nights’ by the’ Pistola Kicks’ who are an indie/alternative genre.

The Cinematography that we used within the video is very stereotypically conventional of the genre, and appeals directly to the target audience. We feel that the close ups of the protagonist’s face (such as when he is drinking the beer) mixed with the high angle shots of the instruments (guitar, bass, drums) are all very effective in attracting the target audience, as they are similar in relation to other comparable texts such as ‘The Killers’ video to their song ‘A Dust-land Fairytale’. Furthermore; black and white coloring is a very typical convention of the indie genre, many videos by ‘The Arctic Monkeys’ and ‘The Pigeon Detectives’ use this technique, and they influenced us to implement the idea into our own work. This is effective because it helps connote the Narrative of the song, and also denotes common themes associated with indie songs and/or videos such as lack of satisfaction, hopelessness and boredom.

We also over-laid some of the instrument shots over others, to help create the experimental style that the indie genre is typically known for. This is also very effective in attracted the target audience.

Mise-en-scène is also used effectively within our video and also linked into our Digipack and Magazine advert to help connote the protagonist’s emotions and character. His costume is very scruffy and represents that he is not bothered about his appearance, which is further denoted by his large beard. This all connotes that he is a very unkempt character, which is again typical of the characters within the indie genre, and would help attract the audience.

Our texts are also very effective in appealing to institutions. The institution we chose to market our Promotional pack was Sony BMG. This is because we researched into other music producers such as EMI, and Sony BMG was much more suited to the indie genre, having produced artists of a similar genre. This would also appeal to the target audience because they would recognize the associated logo with other songs that they like.

In addition to this; the inclusion of screenshots from the video used in the Digipack and Magazine advert is effective in relating all the packages together. Therefore there is a common theme throughout and the audience who have seen the video would instantly recognize the CD and Advert. The themes denoted are similar to other artists work, for instance dejection and loneliness. The link between the three texts is also effective in pleasing the institution. This is because the audience would recognize the link to the video and being more likely to purchase the product.

After uploading our video to Youtube.com and posting it on Facebook, we had some constructive criticism (which was welcomed) from our target audience. We uploaded the original video, but after the responses, we found it necessary to improve some of the scenes and add in some extra footage. The criticism was generally in correlation to the performance shots; the guitar, bass and drum scenes as well as the vocal scenes.

We discovered that not only was the performance not well executed, but also the mise-en-scene was not well planned and could be made better with different locations and well planned costume. After the changes we feel that the combination of the main task and the ancillary tasks is now much more effective, as we can implement the new shots in our research and planning of our ancillary tasks, as well as the ancillaries themselves; rather than images taken from the internet.

Evaluation Question 1

Video feedback

After some constructive criticism of our video (having uploaded it to youtube) we decided to make some changes. We have planned to film some more performance shots of the band to replace the shots we have of the drumming and guitar playing. This is because the mise-en-scene is not very well executed. The fact that the audience realised it was filmed in the school music room ruined the effectiveness of the video. Therfore we will change this to some band shots in a better location with better costume to suit the target audience.

Planning of performance shots

We have planned some of the shots that will be taken tomorrow when the band can play. We have decided to take three cuts, where the band play the song all the way through. The first one will have two different angles of filming from the side of the band and from the front. The second shot will have two different shots, one from an angle from the side facing the drummer, and one from the other side facing the rhythm and drummer. The third will be roaming shots and close ups of the band members and their instruments.

This will give us a huge amount of footage, which we should have done with the rest of the video, and therefore will give us much more footage to edit and choose from. It also means that we will have different angles of the same parts in the song and can choose from which one looks best.

We will need two cameras for this and will book them tomorrow afternoon. We also need to book a place at the Croft (local youth centre) which has a performance room.

Research into indie members

We have researched a number of indie bands, from Paramore to Kings of Leon. Here are some images we thought were inspiring for our own work.

This one we thought was very good for ideas of female indie clothing. There is a female in the band we have found, and it is much harder to choose clothing for females than males. This is because not many other similar texts have female artists within their band. Nevertheless, the clothing is very similar to the males, with skinny jeans and either very dark or very bright tops, along with boots or heels. This is very stereotypical of the indie genre and will help attract the target audience to our video.

This one is slightly different, the female is wearing very bright clothing with leopard print jeans. This is similar to the other shots we have found and we can implement some of the different ideas from this shot into our own costume. The male artists are all wearing similar clothing. With bright colours and tight jeans, this is exactly what we are aiming for with our costume for the band.

This shot is very similar to the others; the female is wearing a checkered shirt and jeans, very stereotypical of the indie genre. The males are also wearing similar clothing to the males in the other pictures. We can implement these ideas into our own work, tight jeans and coloured shirts.

Feedback

After feedback from our video, we realised that the setting and location was not up to standard, at some points one can see that it is filmed in a school music room or in a classroom. This works for the narrative, but for the instrument shots it is completely wrong. This is why we are now getting some extra footage of the band set somewhere else.

We have decided that we need more shots of the band itself within our music video, we have started research into the representation of stereotypical indie bands. The members themselves often wear skinny jeans in black or blue, coupled with tight-fit shirts and skinny ties. This is the look that we are going for with our band and will try and match the mise-en-scene with that of typical indie bands.

Digipack

For the front of the digipack we used an image from the music video which connotes sadness and boredom. There is a close up of a man as the focal point and anchor to the digipack, which would catch the eye of the audience. Furthermore, we positioned the text away from the image, towards the top and to the left. This keeps the focus on the image and then will draw the eye towards the text. This was further influenced by our audience research, most people answered that there should be a link between the mediums. (Music video/Digipack/Magazine advert).

The back of the digipack is another image from the music video. We used this in order to keep the link between the two mediums strong and ensure that the theme does not change throughout. There is still the same denotations and connotations that can be seen throughout the music video and the magazine advert. Those of loneliness, sadness, boredom, repetitiveness etc. This was also influenced by our audience research, the majority of people asked answered that there should be a link between the mediums and that there should be the same denotations and connotations as the music video.

The inside of the digipack is fairly different. We thought that there should also be a link to the band, therefore there is an image of the band playing at a concert/festival. This re-enforces the genre of the music and gives a bit more in terms of color and attraction to the digipack. In addition to this, we put the lyrics over the top. This is due to the answers we received to our questionnaire in our audience research. Almost everyone we asked answered that there should be lyrics within the digipack. On the other side of the inside, we put another image of the band. However this image represents the same themes as the video does. The band are in a tunnel, looking out towards the light. This denotes, again, sadness and loneliness, and connotes that this is what the band is feeling. This is the stereotypical denotation that the target audience could relate to very easily. Finally we put the 'Pistola Kicks' writing underneath, just to bring some reminder that they are the ones in the image.

Reason behind Ancillary tasks

We decided to go with a screenshot from the music video after completing a questionnaire and seeing that this is what most people wanted, a reference to the video. The black and white close up denotes singularity and loneliness, which is a principle theme within the music video. Furthermore; the protagonist denotes boredom and lifelessness. Another common theme that we were aiming for with the music video. We felt that, after looking at similar texts, the layout of the CD cover should be very similar to the magazine advert, and also that it should not have much going on, but attractive font and a large image (screenshot) from the music video. This will really help catch the eye of the target audience.

Magazine Advert complete

Having finished the digipack, we also completed the magazine advert. We made sure that the digipack and the magazine advert were similar, as when we were researching we found that almost all indie/rock artists did this. It also paths a link between the two medium. Here is the magazine advert:

Digipack cover

We have finished the digipack, here is what it looks like.

Front of the CD case:

Back of the CD case:

Inside cover of the CD case:

Inside behind CD cover:
Inside behind CD:

Magazine advert and Digipack almost complete (more influence)

We have been working on our Ancillary tasks these previous few weeks, and have almost completed both of them. All that is left to do is the inside two pages of the digipack.

We got a lot of influence for the magazine advert from some magazines that we looked at. These were the Futureheads advert and another one for Kings of Leon. Here they both are.

 This Kings of Leon magzine advert is almost identical to their CD album cover. The layout influenced our ideas greatly, the text along the bottom for instance, was very helpful. The Amazon.co.uk logo drove us to think about sales, and we implemented the Itunes logo where our single can be bought. In addition to this, the text being towards the top, with the name of the band and the album name together helped us to take the idea and change it to our liking. We ended up having the name of the band 'Pistola Kicks' along the top, but coming from the left (influenced further by the My Chemical Romance CD cover previously). We then put the single name underneath. The text was put away from the image deliberately in order to draw the attention to the image. This is because we really want the image to attract the audience, denoting the typical themes and conventions of the usual indie/rock genre, such as darkness, loneliness and boredom. This is also very similar to how we wanted our music video to look.

This advert for the Pigeon Detectives helped us even further. The 'Brand new album out now' text was drawn into our own work, but rather 'The brand new single'. This will attract the audience, and inform them at the same time of the new song that has been released. It will be especially helpful for fans of the Pistola Kicks, or maybe new-to-be fans that would see this and listen to the song. Moreover; we used the idea for quotes, as seen at the bottom of this advert. We went on the Pistola Kicks' website and used google to find interviews or articles on the band. We then took quotes from these articles and put them on the advert, one we even found from Q magazine.

Similar genre Digipacks

Having looked for various different digipacks, I came across the Killers album covers. Both of them are black and white, which is what we were thinking of implementing into our own ideas, and they both denote the same feelings that we would like to denote through our piece.

This one can be very useful to us. It has influenced our ideas on the black and white theme. We found that it appears a bit dreary, and does not really appeal to the audience or catch the eye, so we will go for a more washed-out colour rather than full black and white.

This one is fairly similar, however we feel that the eeryness and supernatural denotation really appeals to the target audience, the punk/rock/indie audience. This is because it is very different to other texs, and the supernatural element is common within the genre, so would appeal to the audience. We thought that we could use this idea in a different way, with the protagonist from the music video alone in a street or by an ally-way. This really denotes the stereotypical alone, sorrowful man, and comes across as supernatural at the same time, as there is no one around for miles.

Digipack covers

Over the half-term I went to various stores that sold CD's, I took pictures of similar genre bands album covers and the inside as well. This will really help with our influence for our own digipack, we can take ideas and common themes/connotations from them and use them in our own way. I will upload the photos shortly.

Research for Magazine ad/Digipack

We have decided that we really need some hands on research into different CD covers and adverts in actual magazines. This is because we need a wider view of similar genre artists so we can apply some of the same ideas to our own work. Therefore we will be traveling around town and the local city in shops for music magazines and albums. Then we could take pictures of the ones we want and use them for our own digipack. This will really help our research into similar music adverts and digipacks.

We will also produce a questionairre on how the target audience is attracted (16-25) to the advert and CD cover.

Digipack

So far we have decided that for the front of the digipack, we will have a big picture of the protagonist from the single, he will be sitting down or leaning against the wall and the picture will be washed out. This will really help connote the overall meaning of the single, loneliness and being bored of working life. We will have the name of the band coming in a banner along the top from the left, and the name of the single coming in from the bottom right. This is to bring more attention to the image and therefore catch the audience's eye, then the audience will move on to the text and see what it is. We will also have the institution's logo at the bottom right hand corner.
We have decided that for the inside of the digipack, we will have a picture of the band on the left hand side, with the lyrics to the single over the top. This is to represent the people behind the song, and who actually created the single. It also gives a bit more recognition to the band. We thought a picture such as this one of the Pistola Kicks playing at a concert would be quite effective.

Inspiration for Digipack

For our digipack, we have been looking at some similar genre musicians and seeing what their work is like. We also looked at fairly different genre musicians, but those who had a similar meaning within their lyrics (Loneliness/boredom etc) such as 'My Chemical Romance' who's CD Cover looked like this:

We really like the idea of having the name of the band/single in a bar coming across the top, and a black and white image to make up the cover. The image being in black and white or washed out would really help denote sadness and loneliness, and would connote the feelings of the band and/or the protagonist in the video.

Sony BMG

Sony BMG is a very good institution to use with our Digipack (DVD/CD cover). They have produced music for similar artists such as 'Kasabian', 'Foo Fighters' and 'The Clash'. These are similar genres to our band 'The Pistola Kicks', a sort of Punk-Rock/Indie genre and audience.

Music Video complete

Now that the Music Video is finished, we can look more into the Ancillary tasks. Firstly I am going to look into different institutions that produce Music Videos and see what typical genre of music each different institution usually produces. Having done some research previously, Sony BMG seemed to be the most suitable, but more research is needed.

Editing

Now all of our editing is almost complete, we just need to do a little more small tweaking to make it perfect. We realised that we needed some different shots to break up the very long corridor sequences. As it was very last minute, I had a lesson to get to, so Jess kindly offered to spend her free period getting some shots of someone drumming. Once we edited these in the Music Video is looking a lot better and flows much more to the beat of the song.

All of the editing is now done, with only minor parts in need of changing. We would really like to get some more footage of a bass guitarist to get a bit more variety throughout the text. Also we would ideally have to reshoot the last bit of footage, as the lip synching is very rough. This will have to be done sometime this week, or not at all, as the deadline is in a few days.

Filming finished

Last night I filmed the rest of the footage that we needed, after Jess filmed the introduction scenes, I filmed the 'whatever happened to' scenes and now I have finished filming the rest of the video. I spent lunchtime today and one of my frees editing for 2 hours. This enabled me to get the video into a rough complete edit, but there are still a lot of tweeks to do. Next lesson I will show Jess how it is coming along and will edit some more using the time of the lesson.

After showing Jess, she is pleased, but thinks that we need a few more shots, I agree completely, with some drumming or bass shots the video would flow a lot more and generally appear much more professional.

Filming almost done

Now we have almost completed all of the filming and are halfway through the editing process, we thought it would be a good idea to update the blog!

Halfway through editing we noticed that we could do with a larger variety of shots, we focussed so much on the beginning of the music video and using all the jump-cuts and fast to-the-beat shots, that we sort of neglected the rest of the video. With parts such as the 4 screen split section, we have not got the footage we need, and have developed our ideas to have multiple shots in each split rather than prolonged single shots that would get boring.

Almost all of our shots are filmed inside. We did this to connote the underlying meaning of the narrative, that the protagonist is trapped in a world of work and is unable to get out of it into the open world.

Some quick research for the Ancillary tasks...

Being caught up in the frenzy of trying to get all the filming and editing done on time, along with the various different problems we ran in to along the way, I had almost forgotten about the Auxiliary tasks. With the DVD cover in mind, I started researching into the Pistola Kicks life-style and came accross an interesting interview, along with a picture I have already uploaded, which could be used on the DVD cover.

One of the questions on the interview caught my eye, and really shows the emotion put into the Pistola Kick's songs. Its about life, and life experiences. This could help us when creating the DVD cover and Magazine Advert.

Where do you get ideas for the lyrics?

Joe: We tend to just write about everyday things, really. Just life and experiences, things like that.

Here is the picture I came across.

This could be very helpful when thinking about ideas for our own DVD cover. The lighting connotes that the band are in darkness, depression almost. And the 'light at the end of the tunnel' could be their music, how they live, and get through every day life.

Filming/Editing/Rough-cut

Today I am aiming to rescue our work that we did before the Christmas break. We almost finished our rough edit, when all of the work on Final Cut Pro that we had done, 'went offline'. If this can be helped, I am also aiming to finish all the filming this week and over the weekend. Once that is done, we will be able to focus solely on editing, perfecting the different cuts and techniques we are using. Furthermore, we can then start work on the Auxiliary tasks, such as the DVD cover and Magazine Ad.

Weekly production notes

We have not uploaded any of our production notes that we have been making. Every week since the start of the project we have been recording our aims and the deadlines for those aims. Here are the production notes that we completed on a weekly basis.

As you can see, during some weeks we did not meet the deadlines we set ourselves, therefore we had to carry the same items and aims onto the next weeks work.

Another problem

After creating our (very) rough cut of the music video, all the footage we had suddenly went 'offline'. At some stage we forgot to save all the clips onto the computer, so we were editing from the SD Card memory, when it was taken out, all the footage went offline. Hopefully we can get around this by just saving the clips to the computer.