Presentation for our project

25.04.2010

Today in class everyone had to give a presentation on what they had done for their media work.
My partner and I worked on our presentation to produce a brief summary of our work that we showed to the class.

I am going to upload each slide and write our notes that we read out to class about our work, which is a brief summary of the evaluation questions we answered. Both my partner and I took it in turn to read each bullet point.

Slide 1

Slide 2

- It uses forms and conventions of real media texts because it focuses on the aritst as the main feature of the video as do a lot of music videos today.
- It also uses forms and conventions because in our video we have created a story that relates perfectly to the lyrics in our video. This is also a similar feature in a lot of videos.
- We feel we have slightly developed forms and conventions by combining both, one being the artist as the main feature, and the other being the story. We linked them together because we felt that teh song was quite descriptive and emotional, and therefore felt that it was important to highlight the artist, but also link it to the story.

Slide 3

- From our audience feedback we found that most people could see that the film must have been well planned and not rushed. Some people commented on how it must have been well planned due to the shots of the instruments, combined with the shots at the house and also the shots outisde, as we used a variety of shots and were determined to use the best one with no errors.

- Due to the delicateness and the mood that our song portrays, we decided that we would try and keep our editing as simlpe as possible, and again, from our audience feedback we were told our editing was good and well done, and it was really effective that it was kept minimal, and that it suited the song really well. The simple effects such as making a few scenes black and white were also said to be effective and suitable
- Unfortunately something was pointed out to us in our feedback that we did not notice at all. One of our shots wasn't framed all that well, and the framing showed that the top of the character's head was actually cut off a bit. We were disappointed that we hadn't noticed this before.

- From the previous mistake we were told about, another one was pointed out to use. One piece of feedback told us that one of the shots were quite shakey. We noticed this during the editing but it did not seem so bad to us at the time, and this scene was of great importance so had we not had included it we would have missed out something quite important. Again we were disappointed but felt it didnt effect the video too much, and it was lucky it was just one quick clip.
- Our target audience were teenage girls of around 14-16, because of the emotion and rawness of the video and a few teenage girls commented our video. They said that they felt they could really connect to the artist and the emotions in the song and that they totally related to the song completely. We were really pleased with this, as it meant that it connected to our audience the way we wanted it to.

Slide 4

For this slide I wrote my own part as I was discussing how effective my ancillary texts were combined with the finished products, this is what I wrote:
- During the planning process of trying to create a good image for my album cover to go with our video and song, I decided before we began filming to incorporate the guitar within the album cover as I knew it would be a feature in the film. A lot of Kate Nash's videos are based on her playing the guitar, also her album covers are quite random. I had originally planned to have the character peering around the corner of the guitar however when I took the picture it did not look right so I changed it to this.
- I believe that my advert and album cover is quite effective with the main product as I have used the guitar to show in the pictures as it did in the film and tried to represent the song in the album cover.

Slide 5

This is my partner's slide and this is what he wrote for his:
- Again I wanted to incorporate the guitar as I felt that it gave the image more of a focus. The image is based in a tree which is something I thought would be creative at the time and would make the artist stand out within the environment. I looked at an album cover of Kate Nash and it was her jumping in the air in the middle of a green field, it gave the impression of a relation to nature and kindess.
- I've tried to keep consistancy by using the guitar because it plays an important part within the music video and wanted it to be related to the album cover and the advert.

Slide 6

- To aid with our planning stage we used YouTube to research any current music videos for our song choice, however we found nothing. We then looked to find videos for similar song choices to attain a flavour of the different styles that have been used. We found it better to have not found anything because we know we do not have anything to base our ideas upon and everything is our own innovation.
- For the filming process of our project, we used a video camera to record our shots.
- We used Photoshop for the editing of our album cover picture and advert. Once we had the pictures we were able to manipulate how the image looked using the tools within the Photoshop, for example the colour contrasts and using a black and white effect.
- We also used iMovieHD which we used on the Mac for the editing process of our video. This programme allowed us to use numerous effects including changing clips from colour to black and white, slowing down clips, cutting out unnecessary shots, cutting down shots and actually putting the filming together with the song.

Slide 7

- We used Blogger to keep a record of our planning process and our filming process and every last thing we done, from mistakes we made and had to rectify to showing the pictures to give evidence of us working and also upload our drafted images of album covers etc. Blogger was our main feature for our planning and evaluation stages.
- We used the internet for our research and again as previously mentioned our planning and evaluation stages due to using Blogger. We used the internet to research Kate Nash and other videos that we thought might relate to our song. We also used this to research how Kate Nash represents herself in pictures to try and capture a way of how we wanted our character to portray the song we had chosen.

- And finally, we used PowerPoint for our presentation, creating a housestyle and trying to make it informative for a summary of our project.

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

^ My partner using the Mac to edit our film



^Myself using the Mac to edit our film

To plan, process, produce, research and evaluate my film, a lot of software and programmes were involved to allow me to do so.
Firstly obviously was doing the research for my product. The computer and internet was one of the first things we used, to research songs that we were going to consider using and then once we decided what song we were going to do, we continued to use the internet to look at the way for example Kate Nash represented herself and her character in her pictures. We also used the internet to download the lyrics to her song so we could plan out our filming line by line to ensure we had enough footage for each line.
Another technology we used was the camera for actually recording our film and also the cameras to take the pictures for our adverts and album covers.
To aid with our planning stage we used YouTube to research any current music videos that had the same sort of point that our song tried to get across. We also used YouTube to explore other videos that worked differently from the way we intended ours to, so that we could get a full view of what would work better for our song.
I also used Photoshop for the editing of my album cover picture and advert. Once I had the pictures in Photoshop it allowed me to manipulate how the image looked using the tools within Photoshop, for example the colour contrasts and using a black and white effect.
For the editing process of our film we used iMovieHD on the Mac (which is demonstrated in the pictures above) This programme allowed us to use numerous effects including changing clips from colour to black and white, slowing clips down, cutting out unnecessary shots, cutting down shots and actually putting the filming together with the song.
For the planning and evaluation process, I have used Blogger. This has allowed me to keep a diary of each thing we have done during our creation of our video. This technology has been excellent to make a diary with and also be able to evaluate my whole project.
Also myself and my partner used PowerPoint to make a short presentation answering evaluation questions in more of a brief way than on here, to basically give a summary of what we have done throughout our project.

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

During the planning process of trying to create a good image for my album cover to go with our video and song, I decided before we began filming to incorporate the guitar within teh album cover as a lot of Kate Nash's videos are based on her playing the instrument or it being the main feature.
Also her album covers seem to be quite random. I had originally planned to have the character peering around the corner of the guitar however when I took the picture it did not look right so I changed it to the artist laying down to what looks like next to the guitar.
I believe that my advert and album cover is quite effective with the main product as I have used the guitar to show in the pictures as it did in the film and tried to represent the song in the album cover.
Although I quite like my album cover, I just feel that it lacks something, as does the advert. I believe that maybe if I had done more editing to it, it could have come across as more technical, whereas because I know that I didn't necessarily have to Photoshop the image a lot, or change a lot of things and make it look more intricate as the song is, that not a lot went into it and it doesn't look as professional as it maybe could have done. As with the advert, I believe that could have been better. I did try to change it from the album cover by giving it a different appearance making the picture black and white, however I am not overall happy with my ancillary texts and if I had the chance I would try and do something different, although I do believe that the album cover picture goes well with the song and the message I was trying to get across, so on that part I am happy with what I had done.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Our audience was a particular audience that we chose. We imagined ours to be a teenage girl of around 14-16. We chose this age group because it is the typical age group who are at school that begin or are already going through what they deem to be as heartbreak etc and we felt that the female artist relating to the audience would be the best way to attract and keep the audience interested in our song.
There are certain moments in the song where you can see the emotion in the artist, and therefore this was another attempt at trying to get across that young girls can relate to this because they are going through a similar sort of thing.

From our audience feedback I learnt a lot. I had a couple of comments from girls of this age who said they totally related to how we presented the artist and the love story which I was really happy about as this was one of our aims. This meant that the way we had the artist represent the emotion and heartache she felt worked for them, and it attracted the audience and helped them relate to the story we tried to get across.

Also from a more technical view, we found that we had a few good comments on the fact that our video looked well set out and that a lot of planning must have gone into it. A few comments mentioned (as well as this) that they can see planning must have played a huge factor because of the intricate changes from instruments to characters to instruments again. We also got commented on the fact that our timing with the instruments and the music was impeccable, and that it could not be faulted at all. This was fantastic to hear and I felt really happy at these comments.

We also learnt that there is no need to over complicate the editing. Due to the delicateness and the mood that our song portrays, we decided that we would try and keep our editing as simple as possible, and again, from our audience feedback such as comments on a social networking site where I posted the video, we were told our editing was good and well done, and that it was really effective because it was kept minimal and that it suited the song really well. The simple effects such as making a few scenes black and white were also said to be effective and suitable to the simplicity of the song.

Although we had some positive feedback, as expected we also got a couple of negative feedback, however after looking at this feedback and looking at the video, we accepted it completely as the feedback was correct. Unfortunately a scene that we had shot, after it was pointed out to us, it was obvious that we hadn't framed the shot correctly, the artists head was not in the shot properly and part of it was cut off. I was quite disappointed with this however was also grateful that this only occured in one shot.
Also, I learnt through feedback that we need to double check everything for simple errors, because there is a certain point in the video that we did not realise until after where one tiny shot is a bit shakey. We had realised this before but didn't see it as a problem as we thought we could barely notice it. Until we watched the video after we saw that in comparison to the other shots in the video you could really notice it.

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

I believe that my video uses quite a lot of conventions of real media texts.
For example, during the creation of the video it was decided that the artist would be the main feature of the video, this was after doing a lot of research and finding that some videos focus on the artist, and others focus on telling a story, so there is a mixed variety of what way videos are done. It was decided that our video would be based on the main artist, so therefore this means that we used conventions of real media texts. I felt this was better than trying to challenge conventions because I was worried it might make the video unrealistic, as it seemed more realistic to use the artist as a main feature to the song.
We also decided to incorporate a story to the lyrics as well as focusing on the artist, as this is something that is quite frequently done in music videos now. We also linked the main feature and the story we told to the lyrics because we felt that it developed conventions, although we realised it had been done before, we felt that it developed what is usually done today, because most videos we researched that were similar to our song, showed either the artist, or the story, but not the artist trying to tell the story, however songs such as Nickelback - Photograph, is a song that does just what we done, use the artist and the story telling and combined them together, and this is also something that we thought worked for this song and this was one of the original songs we were contemplating doing, when we began planning Nicest Thing we decided it would be a good way of developing conventions of media texts and putting both the artist and story together.

Kate Nash - Nicest Thing - Final video!!

(26.03.2010)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R49u15rPB_o

Album Advert

(26.03.2010)

This is my final advert for my album:


I made it black and white to try and show a contrast between the album and the advert, just to make it different. I included the date it was released, and also put a quote in from 'The Sun' in an attempt to try to show that Kate Nash has not produced an album in a while and is now coming back.
I am very happy with my advert, as I feel it is basic and simple, and much like Kate Nash's adverts for her previous albums, the adverts do not come across as if they are entising people to buy it, more like they are just informing them, as she is a down to earth person and that is what I tried to represent in this album advert.

Album Cover

(26.03.2010)
This is my final album cover:



It is not exactly how I planned it out to be, I planned that I would have a picture of the artist peering from around the side, but when we attempted this it did not go to plan, and it did not look right. So instead I had a picture of the arist laying down next to it, smiling. Much like Kate Nash in her pictures, I attempted to portray a sweet and genuine feeling to the album cover, and I believe I have.
I also tried to keep the text simple as it is on her album covers too.
Myself and my partner had to vary the album cover slightly, although we kept the same house style with using the same font, he had to put the text in a different place to mine because on my album the text only seemed to look right just underneath the artist, I tried to put it on the guitar but I felt it ruined it, where as his album text had to be put in the bottom left hand corner, because that was the only place it worked for his.

Finished!

(25.03.2010)

Today we finished the final editing of our video, just some minor changes and swapped a couple of the shots around, and we were extremely happy with the final outcome, so we today we finally burnt our video onto a disc, and were finally finished!

Editing album cover and advert

(16.03.2010)

Today after having successfully taken some good album and advert pictures the second time round, we set some time aside to edit our album cover and adverts, so that they were done well ahead of the deadline, and so we could make the final finishing touches to our editing before the video is due in.
I will be posting my album cover and advert when I post my final video, so that my ancillary tasks are together with my video.

Album cover and advert pictures.

(9.03.2010)

Today we took our album cover and advert pictures.
We took them up the town park, I had planned to go along with my original draft of my album cover however when we took the picture and looked at it after on the camera it looked awful, and did not look realistic, so I changed it slightly, still trying to keep the cheeky side of the picture in which I hope and believe still came across.
However when we got back to school we found that some of the pictures were blurred, but we wanted to have a selection of pictures to choose from so we had to go back and take them again. Which meant we couldn't edit more of our video because we needed the time to take more pictures again.

Began editing

(26.02.2010)

Today we started piecing parts of our filming together. Such as the instruments with the scenes shot at my house and the town park. We did not realise how much of a challenge it would be getting the guitar in time with the song, and it was quite a challenge. However after a lot of patience and perserverance we finally managed to get it in time, and we were so happy, made sure we saved it straight after.

We also began putting the scenes together to make sure they fit to give us enough time to see if some didn't we had time to shoot more.

Filmed scenes

(23.02.2010)

Today we filmed our scenes at the town park again, ensuring that I wrote the right dress so that the scenes actually fit in with the shots we had already filmed. Again luckily enough, we were really happy with the shots we had filmed.

Evaluation Questions

(22.02.2010)

Today we were given our evaluation questions, these are:

1) In what ways does your media product develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2) How effective is the combination of your media product and the ancillary tasks?

3) What have you learnt from audience feedback?

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

Filmed scenes at town park

(22.02.2010)

Today we filmed some of our scenes at the Town Park. They went really well and we were pleased with the shots, they were well framed and just looked really good, we were both thoroughly pleased with these shots. Until of course, the enevitable happened, as nothing as gone 100% right for us, something had to happen again! We later realised that the scenes shot at my house were shot in my blue dress, and not the brown dress that we shot the scenes at the town park in today. Therefore, we have to set another date to film the scenes that we can't use today! Another lesson learnt!

Shooting scenes at my house

(19.02.2010)

Today we shot some films at my house. We decided the best thing to do would be to film each line a lot of times so that we had a lot of shots because both of us from previous experience have found that you can never have enough shots, as some may not work, or look right once you begin editing, and neither of us are prepared to be in the situation where we have to rush a shot or use one that is not correct.

Weather!!

(16.02.2010)

Today we were all ready to shoot some scenes at the Town Park, and when we got there, just beginning to set it up and choose what part of the scene to use, it clouded over and started to rain.
This at least taught us to plan with the weather forecast from now on, and not to just go into filming it without knowing what is ahead!

Mirror and instrument shot

(12/02/2010)

Today we decided to attempt to shoot a clip in the drama studio as it was free, so my partner got his guitar and sorted out the spot light, and we began filming. We thought that it would be a really good idea to try and do a mirror shot, so I laid on the floor with the camera and angled it so that we got the camera out of shot and got my partner perfectly in shot playing the guitar.
However, once we finished and played it back we decided it actually looked awful, and just wouldn't fit with the other ideas we had for our song, so we decided to film over it!

Location Hunting

(03.02.2010)

We decided previously that we wanted to try and find somewhere that was fitting to do some of our filming and to also do our pictures for our album covers. We decided that during our free period we would go to a fairly local place called 'Gibberd Garden' as after thinking of a place that has nice scenery we came up with this idea. When we got there we saw the sign that said it was not open until April, so therefore we had to then forget this place and try and find somewhere new. We decided that the Town Park could be considered as there could be some nice places to do some shots.

Album cover design

(27.01.10)


Today we planned our album cover design. I decided that it would be a good idea to do a random shot, as Kate Nash seems to do in her pictures. I plan to have the artist doing the pose I have shown in my album design, as this is a pose she frequently does in her shots. Although this is not the pose that may fit with the song we are doing, as it is an album cover, it fits with how Kate Nash represents herself, as she seems to come across quite cheeky. Which I hope will come across in the actual album cover once I have done my picture.

Planning our story to the lyrics

(25.01.2010)

Today we planned our story with each line of 'Nicest Thing'.

We felt that this would be a good idea to do so that we know what we are filming for each line, as from previous experiences we know that it is extremely difficult to fill up each line if you do not have a solid plan, we both decided that this plan is not for definite, as once we look at our locations they may change, but the we will change the plan with them once we have decided on our locations that we are going to film at.

Further research

(18.01.2010)

Today we researched how Kate Nash presents herself in her pictures, and what sort of attitude she gives off in her poses, some artists show a type of 'cocky' attitude in their pictures, through their expressions and their positioning, so far we were under the impression from Kate Nash's songs, such as Foundations, Mouthwash and Nicest thing, that she was quite down to earth.

After researching through her pictures we put together an A4 page worth of her pictures together, to try and give us an idea of the way she is, here it is:

After looking at her pictures we decided that our impressions of Kate Nash were correct and that she seems to be very down to earth, and its almost as if she does not think of herself as an artist, and that she knows she is just a regular person doing a job that she loves. Her shots are not glamourous and appear not to be airbrushed as other stars are, and she seems really genuine in her photos, laughing, pulling silly faces and just having a good time. We decided that this could be an approach we could use to our album cover, but will look more into this soon.

Planning our Video

(15.01.2010)


Today we decided that we needed to make some definite decisions for our video so that we could begin to research more about Kate Nash and her appearances in her videos, to get the way she and her songs represent her.

Firstly we decided on our locations.
- We decided that as the song we have chosen is a love story, our video should be shot in two houses, the artist's house, and the boy she is in love with, to demonstrate the separation she feels. Also, showing the separation in their lives, but also the similarity.
- Our second location we decided would be to hopefully use the drama studio in our school, as Chris does the lighting for the school plays we thought that we could blacken the drama studio out and put one spot light on, and have instruments playing in that spot light for a delicate touch to the song as it is quite a delicate song and the subject it is on is delicate also. We also decided after listening to the instrumentals in the song that a guitar and a violin would be the instruments we would film.

Secondly, we decided our characters.
We decided it would be just one girl and one boy, we thought about bringing other characters in but decided it would be best just to use the two characters so that we could really show its about them, and not about any other character involvement whatsoever.

Thirdly, we decided on our genre.
Fitting with the song, we decided that we would base it obviously, on romance. Based on the girl character in love with the male character, and trying to get across just how much she loves him.

Fourthly, we discussed our camera shots we would use.
We decided that we would need to use a wide range of shots to have some variety in our video, including close-ups to get the emotion across from when the artist is singing.
We also decided to do some medium close-ups when we are filming a holding hands scene, to try and demonstrate love and show the closeness that the artist wished she had with the boy.
We also decided to shoot some mirror scenes, perhaps with the guitar playing.

Fifthly, we decided how we would go about our editing.
We decided it would be best to limit the special effects due to the pace of the song, as the point that is coming across in the song is slow and meaningful, so special effects may take away the focus of the song.
We also decided that we would focus more on getting lip syncing right rather than worrying about special effects.

Asking the artist for permission

(14.01.2010)

This is evidence of us asking Kate Nash permission to use her song for our video.

Kate Nash - Nicest Thing

(11.01.10)
Our main reason for choosing this song is that it is easy to tell a story to, as it is a love story and we can get a couple to act it out, with the main feature being the girl, miming certain lines etc. We thought it would be a perfect video to shoot as we could incorporate it with the spring season on the way, and show it as a summer romance, but one that really does mean something.
Also, there is no video to this song, therefore we have nothing to go by and it will completely be our own work, without any influence from anything else.


As you can see in the spider diagram, we have a few ideas already about what we want to do with the video, since taking this picture we have come up with more ideas but in the next lesson we need to take another picture of it to post on here.

Research
I thought it would be good, as there is no video to this song, to research a song that I felt was in the same genre, so we could see how that video told a story.
Katy Perry - Thinking of you, is a song that is similar in telling the story. Assessing the video, we noticed that the main feature was the artist herself, but also, there was a story to the video, which was what we wanted to do too. Looking at this we were confident that our video could be a success.


(us researching Katy Perry's video)

Planning process - Next step!

(5/01/10)
In today's lesson, at the beginning we were able to eliminate some songs after thoughts and some research into the lyrics, as you can see there are songs we have crossed out in the spider diagram, unfortunately though, adding more songs as we went along, because after researching some songs last night, it lead us to listening to more songs and coming up with more ideas:



We started to look through my Ipod and then Chris asked to listen to Kate Nash - Nicest thing.
As soon as we started listening to it we both realised it would be an excellent song to shoot a videoo to, mixing the lyrics with story telling and also featuring the artist. We were happy to come up with one song from about twenty, and after looking at the other songs, we decided it was the best idea.

Summary of planning process so far

(4/01/10)
In today's lesson we sorted out the groups we wanted to go in, myself & Chris made a group of our own.
Today we made a spider diagram of what songs we potentially think would be good ideas for our media videos. Here it is:


A few of the song ideas we came up with were:

Nickelback - Photograph - we thought this could be a good song because the lyrics tell a story and we could develop that story in our video.

Busted - What I go to school for - we also thought this would be a good video to shoot and a fun story to tell, however we both know the original video pretty well, and thought it would be too risky because it would be easier to copy it as the ideas are already in our heads, so therefore may not be able to come up with anything original.

In today's lesson we decided it would be too hard to discuss what songs we could definitely do without actually researching the lyrics and the videos, and as we didn't have any laptops or computers with us, so we're going to research the other songs and in the next lesson we are going to try and eliminate more song choices.

A2 Brief

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include music promotion video, together with two of the three options:

- a website homepage for the band
- a cover
- a magazine advert