Evaluation

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

For my coursework task I chose to construct a music video, and with this a magazine-advert for the band’s album as well as a complete digi-pak design. The conventions of my product are incredibly subjective to which genre I were to choose. If I were to have chosen a pop video it would have made sense to fill my video with very aesthetically attractive people and include a dance routine, however I chose rock/metal music. The conventions of music videos for rock/metal music are far more open as the genre varies so widely. My music video took the form of a horror/thriller storyline combined with a rock band performance on a stage. This is very typical of heavy metal music as the imagery of the film genre matches the sound and emotion of the music perfectly. One thing I was always certain I would include was the bands’ performance, on a stage, I had noticed from research that many students with the same task leave this part out entirely and it’s such a vital part of any music video, very importantly though, within rock music, certainly heavy metal, the band or singer aren’t necessarily the ones involved in the opposing narrative. My music video, very much took influence from all other videos by HIM, as they have quite a unique and celebrated style of music video and I think resultantly my music video did end up looking similar to one that the band would have made themselves. Also another thing i've noticed abotu other students work is the lengths of their shots being far too long, leaving the video unrealistic and unwatchable. My clips however average at about half a second so the viewer is constantly interested. I have developed this though to try and add my own unique style of filming and editing with my personal choice of varied shots such as close ups on the vocalist and the main character and dynamic moving shots of the bands’ performance in general. In terms of my ancillary tasks, however much I genuinely think they look good and that they fit their purpose perfectly, I would find it hard to say that there’s anything particularly original about them. Instead they are an incredibly typical example of a heavy metal album case, to the point where you could say they’re quite cheesy. I think this is ideal though, I don’t particularly think there’s any need for anything experimental or unique with the digi-pak instead I think it should clearly reflect the genre of music it’s containing and I feel I have done that sufficiently.

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

I think the combination of my main product and ancillary texts are very effective. To go with my
music video i created an advert for the album that would appear in a magazine and a CD album Digi-Pak which includes the front, back and side panels. One thing I always knew was very important was to keep the general feeling of the Mise-en-Scene the same as a running constant throughout all of my products. Therefore I had to make sure that the ancillary tasks gave off a similarly dark and moody feel to the music video. To achieve this I used a lot of darker colours, blacks dark browns and dark reds, combined with white font, usually with an orange or red shadow to create a flame effect (to match the song title soul on fire).  The photo I used for my album front cover and resultantly the advert too, was taken in a near pitch black room, and then affected later. I made this decision as I liked the dark shadows that occur in the confines of the face and wanted to play around with the idea of darkness. I then incorporated the use of candles, the idea of a weak flame that’s quite fragile but also providing this small source of light, I think fits perfectly into my ancillary tasks. At the close of my music video it cuts to a shot of the band’s name HIM and then fades out, I used the same font in the video as I did in my ancillary’s when displaying the band’s name, and this link works very effectively in my opinion. All together they make a very believable package, emulating hugely previous work by HIM but also previous work by me and incorporating these things together across the entirety of my coursework has been fantastic and turned out very effectively. 

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback has been an essential part of my coursework production process. Within our media class we compared all of our ancillary tasks together and collected feedback from our peers on several occasions, this helped me hugely in shaping my products. The video has been received very well by all i have shown it to, people have particularly commented on the fast rate of shots, the dual narrative of the story and the band performance, the editing surrounding the vocals( the syncing of the lyrics as well as the slow motion effect) and my general continuity and construction. The only negative comments i have received are that the storyline is relatively hard to follow, this is due to the fact that this video was originally going to be much longer with a prologue and a voiceover explaining the situation, but i altered this due to time restraints and then tried to make the story as simple as possible. Ultimately what I have learned from my audience feedback is that everything takes a lot of time, there’s no point in rushing anything like this and if I’m honest I would have liked even more time especially with the video.

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

Throughout the construction of my ancillary tasks I was getting to grips with new media technologies in the form of the apple mac. Though I understand the idea of a mac isn’t particularly new I’ve never really used one before, however I knew that they are dramatically advanced compared to PC’s in terms of artistic and creative work. I used word 2008 for the mac and found it to be both incredibly easy to use and super effective at creating dynamic and realistic looking products.

For the Music Video I first of all had to use a piece of software called AVS video converter Pro, as my video camera saved it’s files in an unusable .MOV format. I spent a good few hours scouring the internet looking for a free video converter to download, finding that most of them would leave a  water-mark across your video but eventually I found one that didn’t and I was on my way. I then had to upload all of these video clips into Windows Movie Maker. After spending so much constant time editing my music video using this software I would say I’ve not only become a semi-expert but I also never want to see it again. But seriously if you are to use Windows Movie Maker for any extended period of time it becomes very easy to use and although it’s limited in its’ editing properties it more than makes up for this in its’ simplicity and adaptability.

In terms of my evaluation I have used Facebook to assemble audience feedback from people as well as doing all of my research using the internet, being the only subject that I don’t partially rely on a text book for it has been great to research and record things as I would do myself with my own interests. The blog has been an incredibly effective and easy way of organising all of my coursework together and since doing this coursework I think I will be using them a lot more.

Special Effects

 

To edit my music video i used Windows Movie Maker, as it was the only system that my netbook laptop was able to run and i didn't have any other computer i could use. So my selection of special effects were quite narrow, however i did feel it was important to use some, to try and vary the look of the shots as much as possible. I was originally going to use this grainy old film effect on the entirirty of the bands performance but during editing i realised taht it was a waste to plut this effect on every band shot as the definitionw as so high it would be a waste to taint it. However i did keep the effects on some shots like this one of Oli facing forward from the stage, one because it hid the fact that there were no audience for the performance as well as combining with the lighting of the shot really well to leave an incredibly aesthetically pleasing look.

I also used transition effects, rather than opting for the super cheesy swirls or diamond transitions or even a star wars wipe out, the only transition effects i saw as suitable were the fading out and in from black or white, both adding more fluidity, and adding to the charactisation of the two main characters, adding a black vs white motif makes these opposites more clear.

 

My final use of effects was to shoot alot of the close ups on Tim at 1.5 times the speed and then later slow them down in editing so as to create a slow motion effect. This is an effect that is used in the majority of HIM's videos and as has been previously stated the effect does very much fit the lyrics and the vocals to their songs perfectly, so from the very beginning i was dead set on using this effect. though it proved more difficult than i expected as the only option in Windows Movie Maker was to slow down the footage to half the speed rather than -1.5 so i went online and found on a discussion board that it was infact possible to change the exact speed of the video playback by using this xml

TransitionsAndEffects Version="1.0">
<Effects>
<EffectDLL guid="{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}">
<Effect name="Speed up modified" iconid="32" speed="2.0" comment="Speed up"></Effect>
<Effect name="Slow down modified" iconid="31" speed="0.5" comment="Slow down"></Effect>
</EffectDLL>
</Effects>
</TransitionsAndEffects>

Thank god for computer experts and google is all i can say.

My Final Cut - Soul On Fire Music Video

After a month and a half of constant editing in Windows Movie Maker i have finally finished editing my music video. The video contains over 200 shot changes and the average time for each clip is under a second, this was partially due to my research into other music videos, and seeing that this is the most popular pitfall for students to fall into, to leave long sprawling shots resulting in a very slow paced video which doesn't match the artistic vibrancy of the music. But if i'm honest it was also that this was what came naturally to me when creating the video, i followed my instincts hugely on what i thought looked effective and worked well, though i do realise that this is due to my subconcious knowledge of music videos, having spent half of my life watching them. The video has been received very well by all i have shown it to, people have particularly commented ont he fast rate of shots, the dual narrative of the story and the band performance, the editing surrounding the vocals( the syncing of the lyrics as well as the slow motion effect) and my general continuity and construction. The only negative comments i have received are that the storyline is relatively hard to follow, this is due to the fact that this video was originally going to be much longer with a prologue and a voiceover explaining the situation, but i altered this due to time restraints and then tried to make the story as simple as possible, taking out any fundimental plot points and leaving a basic frame of story so that i could concentrate more on the bands performance and have the story acting as more of an artistic antithesis to it. I myself am very pleased with how the video has turned out, i was worried that i didn't have enough footage to achieve what i wanted but in the end as a rounded piece i think it looks very professional and fitting to the bands music.

Ancillary task 2 - Digipak

My album cover is quite simple, With the bands' name the album title and a solitary face. I have chosen this design because it's reminiscent of most HIM album covers, usually with the lead singers face or half naked body on the front cover and HIM written in big letters across it. I have put my own slant on it though by using an apple mac to effect the photo to make it look both like an etching on a wall and to have a fire-like orange colour. as well as this i have applied a flamed shadow effect behind all of the white text to again amplify the element of fire, running through the design. Within the Digi-Pak i have kept this simplistic motif as well as keeping the same stylised calligraphy font, i have also included the bands symbol the heartagram on the side panel and one of the digipak's panels as the symbol is so synonymous it just would have been entirely unrealistic not to include it, i have been careful not to play on it too much though just to keep it present throughout with exerpts of lyrics running throughout aswell, another feature typical of most HIM album cases. I have kept the colour scheme the same throughout too using blacks and dark browns with a white/cream font, i think the key word for my design is simplisitc, but i have put my own twist on it with my running artistic style and schemes.

REAL HIM ALBUM COVER

Ancillary task 1 Magazine advert

Above is my original version of my magazine advert for the album, while below is my final copy. My first draft was far too rushed and i missed out some very key details. through feedback i realised the main image for the album cover was far too dull, as well as the entire advert being very blank, leaving far too much empty space and not having the dynamics of an advert. To corrent this i have added reviews from magazines along the side as well as moving my main image from the centre to the left to provide room for them. I have also made sure that these reviews are in bhright white as one of the complaitns was the colours of the text weren't bright enough in comparison to the dark background. However i have kept the same background and general colour scheme as this was viewed very positively in my feedback, fitting the genre of the band perfectly as well as including the Heartagram logo in the backdrop. Overall i am very pleased with my advert, i feel i have improved massively on my first effort and that it fits the band's image perfectly.

 

Unfortunately i couldn't find any past example of adverts for rock albums to analyse. This surprised me as i remember the music magazines being full of them, but after more thinking i realised that as we live in such a digital age of music magazines aren't really the place to advertise anymore and the print advert for music is dying out and being replaced with viral adverts across youtube and magazine websites.

Cast - The Band (and costume)

The Band

Tim Smith - Lead vocals and guitar

 I was in a band with Tim for three and ahalf years, so when the time came to choose a frontman for the video i was on the phone to him straight away. With so much stage experience in rock and metal music i knew he could deliver the words so much more effectively and believably than anyone else i knew, arguably the most important role in the entire video so it was vital i found someone who could play all the parts with ease and confidence. For his costume i told him to wear the same kind of clothes he would have worn when performing in our banD,  a heavy metal band t shirt (preferably black) jeans and hsi beanie, as this was also for a while something that Ville Valo lead singer of HIM famously wore.

Oli Pierce - Bass

 Oli also has stage experience aswell as having a beautiful Fender Precision bass guitar, these two factors were enough to choose oli to play bass in the video. for his costume i simply told him to not wear anything to light and cheerful as he would usually wear but instead to wear as musch dark clothing as possible, resulting in him wearing a black t shirt and black jeans.

Tom Farmery - Drums

A good friend of mine, Tom doesn't have much experience on the drums but his exhuberance and enthusiasm were unarguable and unmatchable, resulting in a great shoot. I told Tom to wear whatever he chose as i have found, certainly in HIM's case too that the the drummer is often an oddity at the back, with his own style and fashion, so i felt no need to give him any sort of uniform.

Cast - Storyline (and costume)

Pete Losasso - Johnny

 Being one of the most talented actors i know, as well as a very good friend of mine, i chose my friend Pete Losasso to play the lead character in the video, as filming would be alot easier and i knew he could interperate what i was telling him to do very quickly. I told Pete to wear a hoodie as originally i was going to shoot a sequence in which he would have his hood up covering his face, but other than that i told him to wear regular grunge style clothing to showcase Jonny as a normal guy.

Tom Roberts - Drug Dealer

 I chose my friend Tom Roberts to play the drug dealer, purely and simply because he looks shifty. This part was originally going to be a much bigger one, with far more interation between the drug dealer and Johnny but unfortunately i had to cut it due to time restraints. In terms of Tom's costume i simply told him to wear his regular clothes as the image of how he usually is, is the exacxt image i had for the drug dealer in my video.

Josh Martin - Angel

Another very talented actor, choosing Josh to play the 'nemesis' in the video was a no brainer. Specialising in expressionistic and grotesque acting styles again i knew that he would be able to encompass the idea of his character so well and so easily. Josh's costume was a tricky one, originally i was going to make him wear a suit but he was also going to be joined by a group of people wearing suits and on it's own it didn't really provide the same effect, so in the end i told him to wear regular clothes but to black up one eye so that he has a relatively subtle imperfection/signifier of his character.