Tuesday 25 March 2014
Monday 24 March 2014
Sunday 23 March 2014
Wednesday 19 March 2014
Task Four
During task four, we went to the sound booth in the editing suite to record our voice over for the music video. This is basically a running commentary of the different areas involved in creating our music video.
ANAMATIC
Using media technology in the construction of our research began with our Animatic. We initially looked at artist on YouTube such as M.I.A, SantiGold, Azalea Banks and Niki Minaj. From this, we decided to go down the pop genre. We further did online research in stars such as Beyonce, Rihanna and Nicole Scherzinger who we want to base our star image for Elina on. We further looked at these music videos to see if there were any codes and conventions running throughout the music videos and any continuing themes. The main codes and conventions include fast paces, rhythmic editing, including the use of close ups of the artists. Further, the main focus of all the music videos was the artist, usually complimented with dancers. The themes of the music video included the themes of life and death, being all very rebellious. From this, we got the idea of limbo, life and death- we all wanted to be centered around Elina, and also used dancers.
Using media technology in the construction of our research began with our Animatic. We initially looked at artist on YouTube such as M.I.A, SantiGold, Azalea Banks and Niki Minaj. From this, we decided to go down the pop genre. We further did online research in stars such as Beyonce, Rihanna and Nicole Scherzinger who we want to base our star image for Elina on. We further looked at these music videos to see if there were any codes and conventions running throughout the music videos and any continuing themes. The main codes and conventions include fast paces, rhythmic editing, including the use of close ups of the artists. Further, the main focus of all the music videos was the artist, usually complimented with dancers. The themes of the music video included the themes of life and death, being all very rebellious. From this, we got the idea of limbo, life and death- we all wanted to be centered around Elina, and also used dancers.
We found out about target audience for our music video by looking at the YouTube viewings of similar artist to find out the demographic of the audience. Then we took the demographic from these artists audiences and based Elina’s audience on that demographic. This audience was 15-24 year old females- although we wanted to conform to this, we also wanted to widen the audience by adding female dancers to appeal to a male audience.
CAMERA
We used an fs100 camera. Firstly we gaffa taped the tripod to the ground so the camera stayed in the same position throughout filming. However in order to achieve different shot sizes we used a range of different lenses in substitution of using the zoom. We did this as these different lenses are faster so they improve the footage and perform better under low light. This meant that we had better quality footage for all our different shot sizes so the overall video is in high definition. We also put tracks on the ground so we could do some tracking shots to take full advantage of the dancers skill and get a variety of angles on both the dancers and Elina.
We used an fs100 camera. Firstly we gaffa taped the tripod to the ground so the camera stayed in the same position throughout filming. However in order to achieve different shot sizes we used a range of different lenses in substitution of using the zoom. We did this as these different lenses are faster so they improve the footage and perform better under low light. This meant that we had better quality footage for all our different shot sizes so the overall video is in high definition. We also put tracks on the ground so we could do some tracking shots to take full advantage of the dancers skill and get a variety of angles on both the dancers and Elina.
EDITING
We went through the whole song marking the beat so that we had a rough guideline of where to cut when completing our editing. Syncing each clip was very important as if it was not exact the music video would have looked cheap and unprofessional. Both marking to the beat and lip syncing was crucial the editing stage as these are the things that audience look for. For example, our music video features a lot of rhythmic editing, this is something that appeals to our target audience and is appropriate for our specific genre. In post production it became apparent that the gold paint on Elina at the beginning of the video wasn't prominent enough so we adjusted the saturation of the video on the post production programme in order to make the colour gold really stand out and this essentially enhanced the idea of limbo.
We went through the whole song marking the beat so that we had a rough guideline of where to cut when completing our editing. Syncing each clip was very important as if it was not exact the music video would have looked cheap and unprofessional. Both marking to the beat and lip syncing was crucial the editing stage as these are the things that audience look for. For example, our music video features a lot of rhythmic editing, this is something that appeals to our target audience and is appropriate for our specific genre. In post production it became apparent that the gold paint on Elina at the beginning of the video wasn't prominent enough so we adjusted the saturation of the video on the post production programme in order to make the colour gold really stand out and this essentially enhanced the idea of limbo.
WEBSITE, DIGI-PACK.
When creating our website we looked at similar artists websites, e.g. Rihanna, Beyonce and Shakira. After researching this we created the website on Wix. We made sure Elina’s picture was in middle, centralized continuously on all pages of the website to reinforce her star image and help to show that she is a solo artist and not a band. We made it look classy with a sophisticated black background and gold italic font, also creating a trademark “E”, which was a convention we matched from Rihanna’s signature “R”, we made this a consistent feature throughout our website. We advertised products to buy online, we showed tour dates and merchandise all of which helped with her promotional campaign. Everything related to our target audience to draw them in further. Again we looked at similar artists digipacks when we made the CD cover. Linking it very closely to the website, matching the colours and fonts to keep a similar style between to two. For the front cover of the digipack, we kept it black and white and smoking making it seem mysterious, then contrasted this with a bright gold glittery inside to match the life and death theme of our video. All which we did on Photoshop.
When creating our website we looked at similar artists websites, e.g. Rihanna, Beyonce and Shakira. After researching this we created the website on Wix. We made sure Elina’s picture was in middle, centralized continuously on all pages of the website to reinforce her star image and help to show that she is a solo artist and not a band. We made it look classy with a sophisticated black background and gold italic font, also creating a trademark “E”, which was a convention we matched from Rihanna’s signature “R”, we made this a consistent feature throughout our website. We advertised products to buy online, we showed tour dates and merchandise all of which helped with her promotional campaign. Everything related to our target audience to draw them in further. Again we looked at similar artists digipacks when we made the CD cover. Linking it very closely to the website, matching the colours and fonts to keep a similar style between to two. For the front cover of the digipack, we kept it black and white and smoking making it seem mysterious, then contrasted this with a bright gold glittery inside to match the life and death theme of our video. All which we did on Photoshop.
Monday 17 March 2014
Tuesday 11 March 2014
Monday 10 March 2014
Task Three
Youtube demographics:
Our youtube demographics reveal that females enjoyed the video more then males, we suspected this as the video conforms to the conventions of videos buy MIA and Azealia Banks who's videos are also more commonly watched by females. A second demographic which I noted was that the video was most commonly watched in the US and the UK, this doesn't surprise me as the video reflects more Western styles and behaviour in terms of the style of dance, the clothes worn and the music track itself.
Lastly, I noticed a comment left by Tom Ford, he complimented the areas of the video which we have been made aware that people enjoy, but it was beneficial to hear this as it confirms from an external source that these areas a good. Tom Ford made a comment about the video getting boring in the middle, I was surprised to hear this as we have not heard this criticism before, but it is a interesting comment and perhaps if we were do make the video again it would be something which we need to address.
Task Three
Focus Group
The
video below is footage of the focus group we conducted in order to gain some
rich feedback from our target audience. The focus group enabled us to gain an
idea on how our audience really feel about our complete campaign for Elina.
This video conveys the audiences specific feelings towards certain elements
that stood out to them for either good reasons or bad. This focus group gave us
varied opinions which is exactly what we wanted as it highlights what we have
done well or in some cases what we could have done differently. In doing a
focus group, we received direct feedback that was rich and is impossible to
manipulate as it is from a direct source, whereas with questionnaires there is
a risk of miscommunication.
Sunday 9 March 2014
Task Three
Audience Feedback
Now that we have finished editing, we showed a group of our peers our video to see what our target audience thinks of the video. I wrote a questionnaire consisting of 12 questions asking for the audience's opinion on various elements of our video:
Overall, the feedback from our audience was really positive, they all seemed to really enjoy it, so we have successfully created a video to reach a specific target audience. When we asked the audience to give an overall view of the video people called it 'different', 'creative', 'origional' and 'trippy', this feedback really pleased us, as it was the sort of thing we were going for in terms of an overall idea. Most people's favourite part was the projected images on Elina, they found this section interesting and unusual as it was in keeping with the rest of the video but it was also unexpected, they especially liked the projections of the mushrooms growing because of the exotic colours and wild movements.
I was intrigued by what the audience would say could be improved on so we included this question in the questionnaire, one comment made was that we could have included some more interesting camera movements to add more movement to the video, this was an interesting comment and thinking about it, our video could have benefited from a variety of movements but during editing we did have some pans but we took them out as we did not think they worked effectively, so we should have perhaps included some zooms to see how they would work. The audience also suggested that we include some more footage of 'white Lelia' because we only used her in the second dance break, but we did try this during the editing, but as I discussed in the editing post, the footage didn't work very well at the beginning, so we used more on 'black Lelia' instead.
Everyone really liked the fast paced editing, even when they were asked if they think it should be slowed down at all, they said no as the editing pace makes it really exciting and thrilling. This was an area we were concerned about because we didn't know if there was too much going on making our video overwhelming, but our concerns were put to rest when the audience said that they thought the editing pace was great. We were interested in what the audience thought the dancers and paint represented, to see if we had made it clear enough in the video, most of the audience thought that the dancers represented the chaos of Elina's mind, an erotic past or even ghosts. So there was quite a few opinions regarding the dancers, this shows us that we could have made that element clearer, but most of the audience did agree that they did resemble a sort of chaotic character which is an accurate idea of what they did portray so that was encouraging. When it came to the paint, most people thought that it resembled life and death, with the gold paint signifying Elina's soul, we were really pleased that this element was picked up as it helps the audience understand the theme of the entire video as well as just those elements. Overall, the audience did say that they believed the paint and the dancers really helped contribute to the theme of life and death, and additional things such as the projections just emphasised the idea.
The audience said that they thought our set was really well structured which made it seem 'out of this world', this was pleasing as we did spend a long time getting all the measurements of the lines to be equal so that the set would be symmetrical and thus give the whole video an surreal/trippy feel to it. One thing the audience did point out is that would could have made more use of lighting, they felt that other then the strobe in the dance break we didn't do many other exciting lighting effects, this is a fair point but we did originally plan to have blinders, they just didn't turn out the way we wanted them to, hence they were not included, but we should have added in an extra lighting effect in order to substitute for the loss of the blinders.
Everyone believed that the video was cast perfectly, with Elina suiting the song and the dancers being able to dance well, and this we agreed with, we were so pleased with who we picked for our video as they worked so well on the day and they made our video what it is. The audience said that we should have included more footage of the male dancers, but we had always said that we only wanted them on during the dance break, and this is the way we kept it, we did try and use them elsewhere, but it didn't work well, so despite the criticism, we are glad we kept it the way it is. Another thing the audience said was not clear enough was the road that Elina lies on at the beginning and the end, they just didn't believe that it was a road and were confused as to what it was, they suggested we added some white lines in order to make it clearer. We accepted this criticism and knew it was likely to be an issue, but the post production editing would have been too complex to create a road like setting, so we had to compromise.
All in all, we asked what the audience would score our video out of 10 and if they saw it on TV would they continue to watch, 100% of the audience said they would continue to watch and we scored and average of 9/10 for overall scores. We were really pleased with the audience feedback and we are interested in what external feedback we get once the video goes on youtube.
Now that we have finished editing, we showed a group of our peers our video to see what our target audience thinks of the video. I wrote a questionnaire consisting of 12 questions asking for the audience's opinion on various elements of our video:
Overall, the feedback from our audience was really positive, they all seemed to really enjoy it, so we have successfully created a video to reach a specific target audience. When we asked the audience to give an overall view of the video people called it 'different', 'creative', 'origional' and 'trippy', this feedback really pleased us, as it was the sort of thing we were going for in terms of an overall idea. Most people's favourite part was the projected images on Elina, they found this section interesting and unusual as it was in keeping with the rest of the video but it was also unexpected, they especially liked the projections of the mushrooms growing because of the exotic colours and wild movements.I was intrigued by what the audience would say could be improved on so we included this question in the questionnaire, one comment made was that we could have included some more interesting camera movements to add more movement to the video, this was an interesting comment and thinking about it, our video could have benefited from a variety of movements but during editing we did have some pans but we took them out as we did not think they worked effectively, so we should have perhaps included some zooms to see how they would work. The audience also suggested that we include some more footage of 'white Lelia' because we only used her in the second dance break, but we did try this during the editing, but as I discussed in the editing post, the footage didn't work very well at the beginning, so we used more on 'black Lelia' instead.
Everyone really liked the fast paced editing, even when they were asked if they think it should be slowed down at all, they said no as the editing pace makes it really exciting and thrilling. This was an area we were concerned about because we didn't know if there was too much going on making our video overwhelming, but our concerns were put to rest when the audience said that they thought the editing pace was great. We were interested in what the audience thought the dancers and paint represented, to see if we had made it clear enough in the video, most of the audience thought that the dancers represented the chaos of Elina's mind, an erotic past or even ghosts. So there was quite a few opinions regarding the dancers, this shows us that we could have made that element clearer, but most of the audience did agree that they did resemble a sort of chaotic character which is an accurate idea of what they did portray so that was encouraging. When it came to the paint, most people thought that it resembled life and death, with the gold paint signifying Elina's soul, we were really pleased that this element was picked up as it helps the audience understand the theme of the entire video as well as just those elements. Overall, the audience did say that they believed the paint and the dancers really helped contribute to the theme of life and death, and additional things such as the projections just emphasised the idea.The audience said that they thought our set was really well structured which made it seem 'out of this world', this was pleasing as we did spend a long time getting all the measurements of the lines to be equal so that the set would be symmetrical and thus give the whole video an surreal/trippy feel to it. One thing the audience did point out is that would could have made more use of lighting, they felt that other then the strobe in the dance break we didn't do many other exciting lighting effects, this is a fair point but we did originally plan to have blinders, they just didn't turn out the way we wanted them to, hence they were not included, but we should have added in an extra lighting effect in order to substitute for the loss of the blinders.
Everyone believed that the video was cast perfectly, with Elina suiting the song and the dancers being able to dance well, and this we agreed with, we were so pleased with who we picked for our video as they worked so well on the day and they made our video what it is. The audience said that we should have included more footage of the male dancers, but we had always said that we only wanted them on during the dance break, and this is the way we kept it, we did try and use them elsewhere, but it didn't work well, so despite the criticism, we are glad we kept it the way it is. Another thing the audience said was not clear enough was the road that Elina lies on at the beginning and the end, they just didn't believe that it was a road and were confused as to what it was, they suggested we added some white lines in order to make it clearer. We accepted this criticism and knew it was likely to be an issue, but the post production editing would have been too complex to create a road like setting, so we had to compromise.All in all, we asked what the audience would score our video out of 10 and if they saw it on TV would they continue to watch, 100% of the audience said they would continue to watch and we scored and average of 9/10 for overall scores. We were really pleased with the audience feedback and we are interested in what external feedback we get once the video goes on youtube.
Task Three
Perfect Audience Member
This is Iza Rosa Conray, she is our perfect audience member- she is 18 years old, and from the USA. She is originally from Massachusetts but has recently moved to New York for the summer for an internship at a record label, she is interested in new and upcoming music (the reason she got the internship at the record label) and is constantly looking for something risky, edgy and exciting to do, or listen to: she moved to New York because she seeks a more wild life style, se wants to constantly be excited by people, music and things. This can be shown through her Facebook cover photo- it shows Iza at a festival, loving life, looking sassy, sexy and free. This conforms to the VAL of our audience members: our VAL is the ‘The Experiences”- they are young, enthusiastic, impulsive and rebellious. They seek variety and excitement, looking for the new, the offbeat and the risky. Still formulating life values and patterns of behaviour they quickly become enthusiastic about new possibilities but are just as quick to cool. They hold an awe for others wealth, prestige and power. They find outlets in sports, outdoor activities and social activates. They are avid consumers and spend much of their income on clothing music and film. This VAL relates to Iza because, firstly, she is ‘young and rebellious’- this is shown via the fact she is at a music festival. Secondly, it can be shown in her profile photo: in the video you can see that she is not wearing the generic clothing; she is wearing off beat 'indi' clothing- supporting our VAL- as they would not dress like everyone else, they would find clothes that are different, new and exciting.
Lastly what makes Iza a perfect audience member is her taste in music. These are some of the artist that she has liked. You can see that she has liked artist such as Azealia Banks and Nicole Sherzinger: these are artists that share similar themes to Elina, they are both ethnic females in the business who's music contains elements of their countries background- and as Elina's music has elements of her Egyptian roots in, she will enjoy her music. Furthermore, she enjoys artists like Clean Bandit who's music videos contain many dancing sequences- and our our video is mainly about dancing she will also like the video. Further more, the artist which mainly relates to Iza's VAL is the fact that she has likes Miley Cyrus, who in this day and age is known for rebelling, against her past face in the industry as "Hannah Montanna"- this rebellion is what attracts Iza to her music, and what will attract her to our music video because the music video is about rebelling from death.
This is Iza Rosa Conray, she is our perfect audience member- she is 18 years old, and from the USA. She is originally from Massachusetts but has recently moved to New York for the summer for an internship at a record label, she is interested in new and upcoming music (the reason she got the internship at the record label) and is constantly looking for something risky, edgy and exciting to do, or listen to: she moved to New York because she seeks a more wild life style, se wants to constantly be excited by people, music and things. This can be shown through her Facebook cover photo- it shows Iza at a festival, loving life, looking sassy, sexy and free. This conforms to the VAL of our audience members: our VAL is the ‘The Experiences”- they are young, enthusiastic, impulsive and rebellious. They seek variety and excitement, looking for the new, the offbeat and the risky. Still formulating life values and patterns of behaviour they quickly become enthusiastic about new possibilities but are just as quick to cool. They hold an awe for others wealth, prestige and power. They find outlets in sports, outdoor activities and social activates. They are avid consumers and spend much of their income on clothing music and film. This VAL relates to Iza because, firstly, she is ‘young and rebellious’- this is shown via the fact she is at a music festival. Secondly, it can be shown in her profile photo: in the video you can see that she is not wearing the generic clothing; she is wearing off beat 'indi' clothing- supporting our VAL- as they would not dress like everyone else, they would find clothes that are different, new and exciting.
She is further displayed as our perfect audience member because of the comment by her friend Camilla Mills. The fact that they are shopping at Camden, a edgy, off beat clothing spot in London shows that she will be our perfect audience member and she conforms to our VAL. Camden is a spot where new, edgy and off beat trends emerge from, so by her shopping there, it directly conform to our VAL. Further more, what makes her a perfect audience member is the fact that she is sharing with her friends her love for Azealia Banks- she expresses 'love' for the new song; as our artist is very similar to Azealia Banks, it shows that she will be a perfect audience member as the music that is being produced by Elina is similar to that of Azealia. Furthermore, Iza expresses that the dancing is 'sick': edgy slang for being impressive. As our video includes dancing, it will act as a pre-sold element as she will be impressed by the dancing.
Furthermore, Isa is our target audience member because of her choice in film. She enjoys the themes of after life, psychological elements and the themes of partying. Both the films the Life of Pi and Silver Livings Playbook explore the themes of psychological problems and something that not every human experiences- these share similar themes to our music video. Furthermore, the film Sliding Door's is about what happens if a girls life splits in half: how it can go one way or another, this shares a direct connection with our music video as it is about a girl's life either going one way or another, either life or death. Lastly, the film Project X- a film about when a party is taken out of control shares similar themes as it is about dancing and the party lifestyle, and as our music video includes dancing she will enjoy it.
Lastly what makes Iza a perfect audience member is her taste in music. These are some of the artist that she has liked. You can see that she has liked artist such as Azealia Banks and Nicole Sherzinger: these are artists that share similar themes to Elina, they are both ethnic females in the business who's music contains elements of their countries background- and as Elina's music has elements of her Egyptian roots in, she will enjoy her music. Furthermore, she enjoys artists like Clean Bandit who's music videos contain many dancing sequences- and our our video is mainly about dancing she will also like the video. Further more, the artist which mainly relates to Iza's VAL is the fact that she has likes Miley Cyrus, who in this day and age is known for rebelling, against her past face in the industry as "Hannah Montanna"- this rebellion is what attracts Iza to her music, and what will attract her to our music video because the music video is about rebelling from death.
Friday 28 February 2014
Task Two
We did this as part of the promotion of Elina and You'll Find A Way. In this, Sam and I answered questions from Claudia regarding Elina, the video, the website and the digipak; this was a really useful way to verbally explain how all the components work together effectively instead of explaining it in a written way which can sometimes be unclear. We went up to the common room at school and set up a camera and microphone, we had Molly record us and hold the microphone to make the 'chat show' appear more realistic.
Tuesday 4 February 2014
Saturday 1 February 2014
Tuesday 28 January 2014
Sunday 26 January 2014
Saturday 18 January 2014
Thursday 16 January 2014
Codes & Conventions
"The familiar and predictable forms and techniques used by the media to communicate certain ideas or to convey a desired impression."
Codes:
We understand visual images and technical codes because we develop the skill to read and interpret them, the same way we learn the codes of language; by learning this rules, we change the way the components go together so that we make up recognisable units of meaning.
McMahon & Quinn identified three types of code that help us understand and classify codes as a means of structuring the analysis of visual images:
1) Technical Codes - such as camera angles (high angle, low angle), sound (diegetic, non-diegetic), lighting, framing, juxtaposition, composition, depth of field including rule of thirds.
2) Symbolic Codes - such as clothing, colour, body language, actions or setting.
3) Written Codes - such as headlines, captions, style, font choice or graphic design.
To understand codes, we have to understand sign systems and their rules, hence the reading of signs is an important analysis. This method of studying signs is called semiotics, this is applied to the reading of visual image where signs offer denotations and connotations to the audience. When a social agreement is reached regarding the signs, there is a shared understanding by the audience of the agreed codes which govern the reading of the signs.
Conventions:
Codes are like a language, which when shared, operate by means of conventions. Conventions are often hidden or unspoken rules that we learn to accept and recognise, like 'norms' and can eventually become the natural way of doing or understanding something. Conventions can be used, supported and reiterated, but some groups, for a variety of reasons, like to challenge the established ways and like to subvert the conventions.
Codes and conventions can be applied to different media concepts, such as a narrative, genre or realist codes - which will depend upon a history or tradition in which the convention has developed.
The majority of media products are created in established and repeated ways, like TV programs and films have lengthy introductory and closing credit sequences, sitcoms and soaps are roughly half-hour shows. Film and TV genre products are governed by certain, predictable narrative features (dress codes, lighting effects, special effects).
Codes:
We understand visual images and technical codes because we develop the skill to read and interpret them, the same way we learn the codes of language; by learning this rules, we change the way the components go together so that we make up recognisable units of meaning.
McMahon & Quinn identified three types of code that help us understand and classify codes as a means of structuring the analysis of visual images:
1) Technical Codes - such as camera angles (high angle, low angle), sound (diegetic, non-diegetic), lighting, framing, juxtaposition, composition, depth of field including rule of thirds.
2) Symbolic Codes - such as clothing, colour, body language, actions or setting.
3) Written Codes - such as headlines, captions, style, font choice or graphic design.
To understand codes, we have to understand sign systems and their rules, hence the reading of signs is an important analysis. This method of studying signs is called semiotics, this is applied to the reading of visual image where signs offer denotations and connotations to the audience. When a social agreement is reached regarding the signs, there is a shared understanding by the audience of the agreed codes which govern the reading of the signs.
Conventions:
Codes are like a language, which when shared, operate by means of conventions. Conventions are often hidden or unspoken rules that we learn to accept and recognise, like 'norms' and can eventually become the natural way of doing or understanding something. Conventions can be used, supported and reiterated, but some groups, for a variety of reasons, like to challenge the established ways and like to subvert the conventions.
Codes and conventions can be applied to different media concepts, such as a narrative, genre or realist codes - which will depend upon a history or tradition in which the convention has developed.
The majority of media products are created in established and repeated ways, like TV programs and films have lengthy introductory and closing credit sequences, sitcoms and soaps are roughly half-hour shows. Film and TV genre products are governed by certain, predictable narrative features (dress codes, lighting effects, special effects).
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