Audience Feedback

After a recent media showcase where in which we had a range of individuals from the age of 13-60 viewing our music videos. We were fortunate enough to have some feedback left by some of these people.

We asked the following questions:

What are your initial thoughts on the music video?

Did you feel the ballet worked well with the music? Or did you feel it was challenging the conventions of our genre too far?

What did you think about the editing technique of ghosting throughout the piece?

Do you think our piece appeals to our target audience? If so how? If not, what could we do to improve it?

• Do you think our music video and print tasks compliment each other? If so, how?

After reading all of the comments left by the viewers we picked out the parts in which we thought were constructive and appropriate:

The ballet worked well with the music genre- good contrast

Editing techniques gave the music video a professional look

The ballet and the skate park worked well together

Could have appealed to a younger audience as well as the teenager range

Ghost effect was 'perfect' in coalition with ancillary tasks.

Interesting camera angles and shots- particularly when driving

The use of ballet was a good contrast with the music

Fitted the target audience 'perfectly'

Ancillary tasks complimented the video

Good style and setting

The reversing technique along with the ghosting technique worked well

Driving alienates some teenagers

The music didn't fit the content

We took into consideration all of the feedback we received and were quite shocked by the unexpected comment that the music didn't fit the content as this was one of our biggest factors we wanted to achieve.

I was also shocked by the comment that driving alienated some of the audience as we didn't think it'd be an issue so perhaps this is something to consider when choosing our target audience.

If I were to do this project again I'd probably make sure there was more of a storyline as some viewers said this was a factor that was missing, and also it would have made editing easier as we would have a significant start, middle and end.
The editing techniques we used may have been over used so if i were to do another music video I'd try to avoid doing this as I wouldn't want the audience to get bored.

Altogether I think that the questions were answered well and therefore we chose a good variety to give us enough feedback on our music video. I do think that we could have included a question about what the audience would change if they had the choice as this could have shown us where we went wrong. However I believe that we got some really positive results especially as the genre and content isn't to every ones taste.

Evaluation

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

Our media product uses the surroundings to reflect the mood of the song, as we needed a location that would include fast action pieces, choosing the skate park allowed us to record people hanging out with friends and performing tricks on BMX's. Using editing software we were able to tamper with the speed of the recordings and make the action seem a lot more upbeat. By cutting these recordings in the right place it enabled us to add it to our piece to fit in with the beats making the piece look upbeat and individual. 

The ancillary tasks fit conventions for our music video and the conventions of that genre, this is due to the synergetic relationship we have built between the ancillary tasks and the music video as it includes the same character throughout. using photoshop we have manipulated the character to follow on with the 'crazy' theme expressed throughout the video. The inside cover also reflects the video as we take a snapshot from the suspension bridge and split it into two, one color and one side black and white, this theme is prominent throughout our video, therefor strengthening the synergetic relationship. Our digipak fits with conventions found in remix's, due to the simplicity as there is low funds for album artwork. 

The poster also follows a similar style, creating a synergetic relationship between all of the projects. The poster does it job and promotes the album by including a similar theme to avoid confusion. The poster is the same grey as found on the digipak and also sports the same character. We continues the 'crazy' theme on the poster too by ghosting the top and bottom image, but didn't want to over do it so left the middle image looking relatively normal. The name of the album and the artists' name were put in extremely bold font which we found to be the most successful after researching similar artists such as 'rudimental' who have a great success. also due to research we knew that we should include quotes and reviews to make our poster seem more legit and to encourage listeners to purchase the album. We also layered an image of the digipak onto the poster so people would find it easier to purchase.

DEVELOP

Although one of our locations fits well with the conventions found in a urban dance video (the skate park) we decided to develop an idea and use the Suspension Bridge and its green surroundings. This goes against conventions as they usually involve being in a club with heavy lighting where as ours is in a outdoor location with a lot of natural light. However we still include the dance element so it wouldn't exactly challenge conventions, instead it makes the viewers question the sanity of the main character and therefor makes it more thought provoking. 

The music for our video could be deemed as developing real media products as we decided to feature a remixed piece by Andy C, instead of Major Lazer's original. This allowed us a lot of leverage as due to research we found that no remix song had an actual video instead it featured the DJ playing the set to a live crowd. We instead were able to use our own ideas for our piece which ended up developing some of the usual conventions.

CHALLENGE 

Our media product challenges conventions of an urban dance video as it goes against the usual norm of dance; this including hip-hop and street dance in which the participants would be based in a club and involve a lot of jumping and unstyled dance routines. Instead we played with the idea of including Ballet, something rarely seen in urban videos due to the nature of ballet being more elegant than the harshness of dance music. The care taken in Hannah's steps is increased due to the harsh surroundings of the skate park in which we set it in, this makes her look out of place and supports the idea of 'crazy' featured in the music video. 
The character all round challenges those found in usual urban music videos, this is due to aspects such as her costume which feature a pink cat jumper and no skin on show which is a contrast to the promiscuous females found in usual dance videos. She also features minimal make up and casual hair which again defys conventions found in usual videos. 

 

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

The combination have created an extremely strong synergetic relationship and all work in ways to favour one another all containing similar aspects. To create it so successfully we made sure to include these things: 

1. We chose to use the same character on all of our pieces, this was to create familiarity, it also enabled our pieces to interlock. Having a different character may have confused the viewers and potentially decrease the amount of publicity. Hannah looks good infront of the camera so this made it easy to make the pieces look professional. 

2. Keeping the same effects on all of our pieces made it look genuine, for example the most obvious would be the ghosting effect found throughout our video and on both the digipak and the poster. Having the same effect made and obvious connection between all of the products.

3. Location played a key part in keeping continuity throughout all of the pieces, the poster and the digipak both include a plain grey background which we thought made the pieces look less 'busy' and created a good background to our exaggerated pictures. The middle of the digipak sports the same image found in the music video, the suspension bridge shot was split straight down the middle with one side being color and the other being black and white which also reflects a effect found throughout the video. All of these connections helped keep the synergy strong and easily identified. 

•What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 

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

Throughout research and planning we used new media products such as youtube, youtube convertor, Shazam and Blogspot. 

The mobile app Shazam allowed us to learn the name and artist of our chosen song, using the hidden database stimulated by the recording of the song. This allowed us to access the song without numerous hours of searching.

The website www.youtube.com allowed us to access the videos we had in mind to analyse, having such a easily accessible and clear site, allowed us to analyse the videos to great detail and perhaps even gain inspiration from them. We also searched our song and listen to it multiple times, stimulating ideas.

Using youtube converter we managed to turn the youtube song into a downloadable mp3 file which we then cut using garage band and used  it in our featured piece.

Blogspot allowed us to post all our new ideas and research online almost immediatly, this ment the idea was still fresh. It also allowed us avoid writing it on bits of paper that may get lost instead it is all saved on an online account which can be accessed almost anywhere.

Spreadsheets allowed us to work out percentages and ratios of the target audience we were insterested in, putting the data into graphs and tables allowed it to become a lot more clear what aspects we needed to work on. It also allowed us to create schedules of all the shots needed and the times and dates we were both available to work on.

Filming

We were lucky enough to have a camera from home we could record with a Cannon SLR, this ment we were able to record whenever we wanted to without having to borrow one from anyone. Also as neither of us live far from the location we could go and film if their happened to be any needed.

The tripod made our shots steady which increased the professional element we were going for, as even on a rough surface and fast movements it kept the shot steady. It also allowed us to reach some tricky angles (cut to suspension bridge shot) all the while maintainin reshots g the steady frame. Using a tripod also allowed us to create a vary of different angles. 

Having a phone and social networking sites allowed me and my partner to discuss any changes we wanted to be made on the piece and also arrange times to meet up and film. It also allowed us to frequently check weather forecasts and what time sunset was. 

Editing

Using the software iMovie we could edit all of our rough footage into our final polished piece. It had a big enough space to upload the numerous minutes of footage which on the camera looked useless however once cut down we found a lot of it to be of great quality. iMovie allowed us to access our piece in the exact place we left it with all of editing still intact. All of our transitions including blackouts, fade ins (the beginning) and fade outs (ending) were from the software.
The software made manipulating the clips into black and white easy and allowed us to position the clips into any order we wished while allowing us to skim milliseconds off them.Having our edited music saved in iTunes software it was easy to import into iMovie as they are both supported by Apple. 

The ancillary tasks were made possible by Photoshop which we used for both the poster and the digipak, the software allowed us to make our visions real. Our font was selected out of the hundreds available on photoshop, the style we wanted to go for was presented in numerous ways before we finally found the perfect bold font. Our main images were manipulated to make the main character seem as though she was moving / had two heads also known as 'ghosting' this was made possible by importing the same image again on a different layer and placing it on top, we then had to change the opacity to make it almost see-through. The good thing about layers is they can be added and deleted easily without any outstanding work being effected. 

Final Images

Inspiration

Candence Weapon - Hope in a Dirty City

The first inspiration that has actually stimulated ideas for our digipak is the one above. The cover is a mismatch of a picture, almost representing a smashed mirror and therefore a smashed persona which fits in with our main character who is potentially 'crazy'. The colours in this digipak are a lot like the colours we intend to include in our digipak. The broken font also fits the picture and the theme of the cover. The digigpak includes everything essential to the requirements our product desires.

DJ Fresh - The Feeling

The artwork for this single, oozes with excitement, the bright colours of the lights represents the lights commonly found in dance videos and clubs. The picture is simple but the brightness and dark city backdrop make it look modern and interesting. The brightness is something we'd potentially take from this artwork. The synergy between the artwork and the video is perfect and more empathise the excitement. 

 

 

Major Lazer - Get Free

This is the original version of our chosen song, so looking closely at this artwork seemed essential. Major Lazer uses the same animated character throughout his digipaks, advertisements and it is his original image. The videos, like ours feature unordinary aspects going on and most of the time include dance in a weird form. The fact that the same cartoon elements are used makes it recognisable and therefore has built up a great careers for the duo. We however will not be copying the artwork here and instead be taking a human route.

 

 

Rudemental - Feel the Love

The best thing about this single cover is the synergy between it and the music video. The use of including a clip of the video as the main picture directly links the two, making the single so recognisable and potentially increasing its profile. Rudemental are a similar genre to the one we have selected, therefor it is key we look at there work due to their popularity. The bold artist title makes it so easy to read, and is definitely something to include in our digipak.

Marketing our Product

Now that our music videos are complete, we are working on how to advertise them and the ancillary products to follow. We have to create a Digipak to hold the CD and a poster to advertise the release. Our teacher has given us a brief to stick to and to help stimulate our products

  You are required to produce a digipak that will contain a CD and a DVD of the band whose song you have made a video for.

  You can make a 4 panel or 6 panel digipak

  All images and artwork should be your own

  You only have to submit an electronic version of the digipak

  You can get up to 10 marks for your digipak

  You can submit a group or individual digipak

  You should look at examples of album artwork from the band/artist whose song you are using and also examples from other bands/artists in the same genre

  Your plans should include drafts and sketches of designs

  Your plans should detail when, where and how you will capture your images

  Your plans should include detailed examples from real products to support the choices you have made

  You should think carefully about how your digipak will work alongside your advert and in support of your music video

Here is some inspiration:

Updates

Due to time me and Alice, my partner decided that some realistic changes would need to be made in order to finish our product to a standard we were happy with on time. Although are previous ideas were good and fit conventions, they were also unrealistic and difficult to achieve. Here are the changes we made:


Character

Hannah Bryant, is taking part as out main character as it was easier to film with Hannah as she lives closer and has a less demanding schedule. In fact this worked in our favour, Hannah dances outside of school so we decided to include this in our Dance track. Hannah also chose her own outfit and due to her kooky nature we were able to empathise the 'crazy' persona of the girl. It also allows our character to break out of the social norm not only by her clothes but by dancing Ballet instead of the stereotypical hip-hop.








Location

Instead of travelling all around Bristol, we decided to only have two Locations; The Suspension Bridge and Horfield Skate Park. The idea of the skate park has the same effect as the paint explosion would have. It has also allowed us to have a urban edge to our music video as we film local teens bmxing in a graffiti ridden skate park.

Finishing..

The day has come for the final chance of editting our music videos, a lot of time and effort has been spent on making our video look as proffesional as possible, luckily thanks to some extra time we have an even longer time scale to finish up some rough parts. The process has been very educational and myself and Alice have learnt some valuable skills in editting. As the red box indicates, we are on target and the end is looming closer. We are now moving on to marketing our finished product, including a poster and a digipak.

Shots of filming

We have recently spent the day filming and have ventured over Bristol, here are some shots from our Suspension Bridge section.

The Process

In order to manage our schedule effectively, we have decided to make a realistic plan in order to manage our time constructively. The filming and the editting has all gone to plan as indicated by the red box so luckily and we are on schedule to make the filming deadline.

Actor and Costume

Hannah Bryant

Hannah Bryant will star in our music video, having an upbeat manner and being easily available makes shooting scenes and reshooting scenes easier for us.

Hannah has a fearless personality and is more than happy to do some shots which others may find embarrassing in public. Seeing as the majority of our shots take place in the City Centre this makes her the perfect character to have for our music video.

Our video is alternate therefor we need someone with kooky mannerisms who will fit the conventions well, Hannah would do this perfectly due to her loud and excitable personality.


Costume

Her costume will be slightly different from what the average girl her age would wear, verging more towards the geeky girl side, this is to go against usual conventions found in our genre of music, as the characters are usually edgy and hipster. Her costume will include;

A Knitted Cat Jumper

Pink Polo Top

Cropped Denim Shorts

White Converse

This will make her look like an average teen but the cat jumper will represent her geeky side, fitting with teenage geek conventions.

Storyboard

First draft of our storyboard:

Location, In More Detail

Here are some snap shots of the Location in which we are planning to shoot in.

Area close by to the Suspension Bridge.

 Clifton Suspension Bridge

 Woodland area in which the planned chaos will take place

 Bristol City Centre

Bristol City Centre, main roundabout.

Where My Music Video Would be Shown

Recently we have been looking at Music Channels and which genre is featured on each. As an example we looked at Kerrang, Magic and MTV Base, we all made assumptions on which artists we think would typically be seen under each of these music videos, we then did the research and looked at the current top 10 and the most popular all time hits.
We decided that MTV Base would host artists such as Nicki Minaj, Drake, Beyonce and Rihanna, Kerrang; Green Day, All Time Low and Biffy Clyro and finally Magic; Lionel Riche, Boys 2 Men and Florence and the Machine. Once viewing the websites we found that MTV Base and Kerrang were correct but Magic hosted current music not the 80's label we gave it.

As the genre of our music video isn't specific and is a remix it made the selection of the music channel hard to pick from. After browsing though music channels I narrowed it down to; MTV Base, MTV Dance, Clubland TV and Dance Nation.

When doing further research into the Music Channels I found that MTV base could be optional as Major Lazer is found on this channel and our song is known as Drum and Bass but the music on MTV Base is mainly R&B and our video might not fit conventions of the music Channel as the videos are all 'official videos' and our video wouldn't fit in with that idea. MTV Dance was also an option as our song could easily be a dance track and found in night clubs so this was definitely an idea but also again the videos broadcasted on MTV Dance are usually 'official videos' and our song and video aren't official. Dance Nation is a new TV Channel and our video would fit in well here as it is upcoming and unofficial dance music. However, because it is so new it may not get as many viewers as a well known channel therefor making the selection of this channel harder. Finally Clubland TV was potentially the best place to stream our music video as the Clubland CD's have a huge popularity and it will mean our track will get a definite place on this CD. Also its TV Channel gets 5 times as many viewers as MTV Dance, so overall Clubland TV would be the best place for our music video to be shown. Clubland also features many hits that don't include expensive and exclusive music videos, and include many DJ Sets just like our artist Andy C would do. However the Remix vibe to it gives it potential to be shown on any music channel as there are no strict conventions only the conventions of the music channel would be the issue. 

Updated Shooting Schedule

I have updated the Shooting Schedule so it now includes the props we need to shoot each bit of footage, this will make it more organized and hopefully allow us to meet the schedule. 

Conventions

How do conventions help and hinder you as a producer of media?

Institution:
Andy C's label is Ram Records, Ram Records is an independant label set up by Andy C, speciallising in drum and bass music. It has now spiralled into a multi award winning company mainly from the music it produces and its producer.


Artists:

Andy C is an English DJ and producer, speciallising in Drum and Bass. He features at major club nights and festivals all over the world and is known as one of the top 100 DJ's from 2010 onwards. He specialises in fast mixing and remixing of popular drum and bass songs. 


Major Lazer real name Diplo is an English DJ and producer, featured highly in the dubstep and rave scene. He features and includes many famous artists such as Afrojack in his pieces.  He is now beginning to start a new genre of reggae featuring Snoop Dogg. 


Form:

Andy C doesn't create music videos for his remixes, instead he features himself DJ-ing and creating the new mix. The videos are all fast cuts and usually include people dancing along to the remix. 

Major Lazer however creates music videos to go along side his hits. They usually don't have a specific storyline instead feature people dancing in different locations, the song we have chosen to do the video features people dancing on the beach. 



Style

The style we have chosen is 'Remix' this means another producer or artist has altered the song and either changed the beats and the tempo or they have slowed it right down. Pop songs can be turned into dub step tunes by changing the tempo and including a drop in the beats. There are usually not professional videos made for remixed songs but usually the artist featuring in the video. 


Which of the conventions of the following have you included in your video?

As our song is a remix we are going to follow the no storyline idea and just have chaos erupt when the drop occurs. However we cannot DJ so we can't include that in our video instead we will take aspects from our other DJ Major Lazer and include people dancing and having a good time to match the feel good song. We are also fitting our Institution as the song is drum and bass. 

Shooting Schedule

This is the outline of the shooting schedule which so far has managed to fit everyones schedule, obviously miner adjustments may be made. 

Preparing for the Video

Props Needed:

• Glitter
• Paint and Paint Powder
• White Sheets (in order to keep the space around us clean)
• Water Balloons (aim to fill these with paint or glitter and throw around to create a mess of color, also they're safe enough to throw at a camera without breaking it)

All of these props are essential in creating a colorful explosion of glitter and chaos to fit with the heavy drop in our music video. We found the inspiration from this after viewing the 4Music advert, particularly with the use of glitter to fit the beats. The paint powder will be less messy than paint and hopefully create better coverage. 

Location:

• Bristol City Centre 
• Bristol Suspension Bridge and surrounding locations at dawn and during the day. 
• Woodland area (Location yet to be decided) 

We have no specific story-line in our piece so any location would be fine, we chose this select few as we want to empathize our main character having a good time. It will be shot mainly in the evening however we want a few of sunrise. 

Characters:

• 10 people of an age 17-19 including a mix of males and females for the chaotic scene.
• 2 boys are needed for the opening scene watching clouds pass by. 
• 1 main character which we have chosen to be a girl will be in the centre of all the chaos, and we see alternate views on her life. 
• People driving in their cars are needed for the middle section of our video. 
• People leaving clubs after a night out will also be included in short sections. 

Below is a mood board of a few of our ideas it helped put our ideas down in the form of pictures, as you can see it is an array of colour and excitement, exactly what our video is about. 

Choosing The Perfect Song

Before we could chose the perfect song for our music video we considered what elements we wished to include, we ended up mind mapping it and seeing we could find a song to match all of our ideas. We eventually ended up with this and following on from it two songs in which matched our ideas well.

Once I considered my ideas and a suitable genre for my audience in I had the hard task of picking the perfect song to feature in my Music Video. Me and Alice browsed You Tube and our own individual iTunes and eventually stumbled across The Pursuit of Happiness by Kid Cudi which is a favorite of ours. We listened too it multiple times putting our ideas into perspective and seeing if the beats would fit but it felt to slow for the ideas we had already planned. However, we found a remix of the song by Steve Aoki and we found this had the ideal rhythm for the action to take place. There is also no official video for it so we have nothing to copy, it only has the Movie Project X trailer repeated in it's You Tube video. The song lasts for 6 minutes and 13 seconds but we'll cut this down to around 3 minutes in order to fit our criteria. 

However due to the content of the song being too explicit for our project and the clean version being an awful copy we began looking at closer depth of our other choice Major Lazer ft Amber Coffman - Get Free Remixed by Andy C. This song has a more chilled out vibe, however the remix has given it the dubstep drop we required for our planned action to unfold. This song we feel builds up suspension and we can already see how shots will unfold among the beats. Get Free is 5 minutes 22 seconds long, but luckily we have already found a cut of point around 3 minutes.