Website

http://www.jfs10236mediawebsites.org/darren_oli_greg/index.htm

Digipack

Music Video

Finished Website

The website for the artist Jonny Hants has been completed, which includes links to other songs he has recorded, music videos, bibliography and contact information.

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

Andrew Goodwin conveys that listeners as well as composers ‘see’ images when music is heard. This concept is called Synaesthesia. He refers to the model developed by V.N. Volosinov in ‘Marxism and the philosophy of Language' (1929/86) who describes such interpretation as ‘inner speech’ which is different for every listener but at the same time is socially coded. This was very relevant for our media production. As a group we listening to the track and thought about the image which came into our head when we heard it. One person of our group thought of a serious image, however, the majority believed that the song was an opportunity to use pastiche as well as parody.

Our mode of address is humorous. We have chosen to make our music video something which will not reflect the image. We have used an indexical symbol with a lost dog being shown to the viewer early on in the music video, highlighting that there is a lost dog in the park. We have used ‘Disjuncture’ were the imagery has no apparent bearing on the lyrics. As connoted by Andrew Goodwin, I don’t think our music video has the typical elements of a music video. The fact we have a costume is fairly original. We have used short, sharp images in a Montage, something which was inspired by Russian, Sergei Einstein.

In our production, we do not have any elements of Utopia, highlighting the perfect world, but in fact we have elements of energy and abundance with the dog escaping from a not so perfect world. There is no sexual identity of our star fluid as explained by David Gauntlet. Our music focuses on mainly one character and thus doesn’t reflect a hybrid of identities. Our music video has created a state of hyper-reality, enhanced by the fact that a costume is used of a dog.

1. This image (taken under the monument) shows our main character sitting with his eyes covered over by his hands. This section is accompanied by lyrics saying 'I close my eyes, but might as well be open'. For this, disjuncture is not used. Furthermore, we felt it accompanied the striking lyrics in this song and was thus emotive.

.2. This image shows the character as being sad and lonely. This is also reflected in the lyrics and the effects use in this show that he cannot be shown to be happy all the time as his character portrays him, he is sad and often lonely.

3.This is a shot of the dog lying on a bench, the genre of music is indie. This shot is related to the image "down in the gutter", showing how he has nothing anymore. This is a clear representation of genre, as drinking is often related back to indie music. The genre of music can also be related to emo and self harm as this is what the lyrics are about.

4. As seen in many music videos, we decided to use a piano scene. We thought these perfomrance shots were fititng because there is a piano in the backround and this suited our music video. We decided on this shot seeing as we had no performance shots and felt this would be the best way to utilise the piano.

5. This shot in an alley-way we made use of the lighting equipment that we had loaned from the school. We placed the light at the end of the alley-way to give more emphasis onto the dog and his actions.

6. From this shot we used our camera skills to create a tracking shot to show the loneliness of the character by filming him walking through the park. As well as this, it makes the audience feel like they are following the dog and we thought this had a good effect in our music video.

7.In this shot, Mise-en-scene are used to great effect. This shot not only shows our location which was the park, but also character and clothing Mise-en-scene. It shows the dog costume, the park bench and the bottle of whisky.

8. This is a shot we decided to use based on some of our research into other music videos. I liked the idea of the character running through the park and we decided to use this, we held the camera in POV fashion. Once onto the computer we changed the ratio of shot (speed).

9. This last shot of the dog turning round was inspired from the "30 Seconds to Mars - Kings and Queens". The reason for this was we decided it would work well with our production of the dog looking at a sign then realising the connotation of it.

2.What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We believe that our creative brand and media product have been successful in appealing to our target audience. The completed questionnaires highlighted that our aims were successful and from aural feedback it is evident that people liked our music video. The post-production questionnaire had closed, open and probe questioned and they enabled us to find out how effective our production was.

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

Media technology has been used in the research, pre-production and evaluation stages in a number of ways. The software enabled us to precisely edit our music video. The razor toll and the setting of the ‘in’ and ‘out’ buttons meant that we were able to get rid of certain shots which were needed and likewise, add ones which were. However, we were constrained by the software and hardware technology on a number of occasions. Inevitably, we had a few stumbling blocks. On one occasion of filming, we went to batch-capture in the media suite, however, there was a malfunctioning programme which meant nothing we had filmed could be captured.

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

The image below shows a number of things. Firstly, on the top right hand side, we can see the website that we created for our artist, Jonny Hants. We decided to use simple, common colours which reflected the music style of the artist. As well as this, having the backround back with the black, embolded writing meant that the name and ultimately, the more important things, were eye-catching and bold.

To the right of this picture we see one of the Digi-pack covers we created. In this, as mentioned previously, you can see the blur effect we have used. As well as this, the dog is placed in a council-estate which reflects social realism and the neagtive aspects of the artists life.

Post Filming story board

Digi-pack Cover

Here are some Digi-pack covers we created. These are not our final covers, but they enabled us to get familiar with the making of the Digi-pack. We thought they gave off the vibe that the song created and the black emphasises the sadness of the song, reflecting the lyrics.

However, we thought they were a bit too simplistic and didn't reflect our creative abilities. After asking a couple of people what they thought they noted that the colours were a bit boring and that they were all relative similar. We therefore chose to pursue our Digi-Pack making and made a few others. Below are our final Digi-pack covers.

In this final digipak cover we have used a range of differant images and effects such as the motion blur effect, lighting effects and image cloning to create a further blur effect. We have also used different text styles and fonts to fit in with the background such as in the font by the bench, as the font is fading and looks like it has been spayed on with paint.

When creating the digi-paks i wanted to use a range of different effects and one of the main effects we used was the motion blur as we thought it gives a mysterious lost look to the cover, as well as not knowing what it is that the picture is of.

Making the Digipack

‘Digipak's are a type of packaging that is used for compact discs or DVD's. It consists of a gatefold type paperboard or a cardboard type binding. It is considered an alternative to jewel cases. Digipak is also considered to be a patented style of packing for the above mentioned discs. It was established around the year 2000. Digipak is a very cool way to package both CD's and DVD's. Why is this?
Digipak can be differentiated from other packaging styles because it is commonly used to package special edition type CD's and DVD's.

Often when there is a movie released in theaters that was heavily promoted and awaited by users, the movie will become a special edition when released on DVD. A special edition DVD is often spotted because of its packaging. More than likely, such DVD's are packaged by Digipak styling. When special CD's or DVD's are packaged like this, they enjoy more attention from the public and sell much better and faster. Another advantage of Digipak is that it is less vulnerable to cracking, unlike a jewel case. This is great especially for those people that tend to sit on discs or are just not to careful with them.

Now one might be thinking, what is the big deal with Digipak? It just seems like its packaging for a CD or a DVD, not a big deal. However, it is a big deal. Why? It is a big deal because Digipak packaging offers more appeal to the CD and DVD and thus it increases attention and sales. Plus it protects the CD or DVD much better since the casing is much harder to break when compared to jewel cases. Digipak is considered to be one of the best styles of packaging discs today. There is a lot of variety in designs and colors. Many people that are in the CD and/or DVD industry choose this type of packaging. The main reason is because of its high quality and because its design is so appealing.’ (http://ezinearticles.com/?Digipak---A-Clear-Explanation&id=2742980)

Finished Music Video

After a long couple of months, we were very pleased to have the finished production and completed it to what was branded as a ‘complete success’ by one of our viewers.





Post Production Analysis

This work was done with Greg


On the 11th of march we conducted our A2 music video, to some students with a turn out of 23 people aged from 16-18. The analysis of what we found out will be shown below, i haven't specifically analysed all 7 question but 5 of the most interesting outcomes. Seeing as our school has a sixth form it was a case of only having a range of 16-18 year olds to view our product, question 1 asks what is your sex and from the 23 candidates which showed up it was 11 boys and 12 girls. This helped us to get an equal amount of boys and girls, we did little advertising and the majority of students that came, came with an open-mind as they were unsure of what the music could of been.







For our second question which i felt was most effective seeing as we often asked whats the significance of the dog and people confused of its presence. The dog character was placed in our music video as part of our narrative which was a pastiche as well as parody, the dog was part of the owner as he had lost his dog. The ratio of students which understood the narrative as well as the significance of the dog was 15 said yes and 8 said no to the understanding of the dog, we knew not everyone would understand its significance as a group its not particularly clear in the video of its significance. These statistics give us feedback on how we can learn to make a stronger meaning in the video.


The third question asks if you have ever heard the song, seeing as our artist Jonny Hants was found on My-space and not a mainstream artist it would be hard to find people who had heard his music before. However out of the 23 student we asked there was one person who had heard some of his music and were intrigued to find out where this person had heard the music before, he told us that he viewed his profile on You-Tube and listened to a few of his tracks. It was interesting to find someone who had heard his music before, and the student was male, we found some of Jonny Hants' lyrics to be depressive and upsetting. We where not expecting anyone to have heard his music before seeing as he is a small artist.






In question four we decided to ask the audience: As a result of watching the music video, would you consider buying this song?". This question was useful as our main aim was to market the song, make the Music Video, CD Cover and Website, all of these were to make an impact on the consumer and to make them want to purchase the music. With the results that we obtained were interesting as there were 18 people who would buy the music and 5 people who were not interested in purchasing the music. We also helped people to hear less mainstream music than the usual music which people would normally listen too. The fith question which we asked was "Do you think having the pianist in black and white worked". This question was useful as it helped us to see if what we decided worked, the result were relitavely one sided with 20 people who said yes and 3 people who said no. We were happy with these results as we spent time flickering between colour and black and white, the main advantage to having black and white was to iron out some inpurities and make them look less noticeable.





Our sixth question "Do you like the use of effects such as dip-to-black", these video transitions that we had put in were for added effect and smother movement from the first shot to the next one without having a pure straight cut. The results were 18 people said yes to having dip-to-black and 5 people who disagreed with it, we left a space to write below, if said no please respond why. Only 2 out of the 5 responded to that section and one quote from it was "I prefer fast cuts rather than slow transitions between shots", we took this criticism on board and could see where people were coming from as other music videos are very fast and over 100's of different shots interlinking.

The seventh question was most vital for our production as it asked the question which was key to the success of our vide, "Do you think a music video is possible to persuade you to purchase a song?". The result were equal 12 people said yes and 11 people said no, for many people they cannot be easily persuaded by a music video and have a certain taste in music and the video just comes with the music, there are some very well known music videos and iconistic one which people remember, that helps to keep the music strong with a well made music video.

CD Cover

As part of our course we had to create a CD cover. As a group, we decided to go for a simple idea which would be easy on the eye and we want to use bright colours that will be eye-catching and stand out. Ultimately, CD covers are what the consumer sees and thus we deemed making ours brilliant essential.

DeadMau5 were a key inspiration of ours. Not only did we decide to base our music video on pastiche and replicate the use of a 'ghost' costume in our music video, but we also gained a good inspiration from their CD cover which you can see to the right of this. We believed that this cover captured the imagination of the song and was also eye-catching.

Post Filming

Once we had successfully filmed, we had to enter the editing process.

Althought this is a long process, without it, our music video would not be complete and therefore our aims would not be fullfilled.

Practice Shots


The following shots are practice shots which we took prior to filming and these helped us prepare for similar shots and see what worked well and likewise, see what didn't.



Shots like these help us establish good shots and look at what angles would work well for our media production. We took a high angle shot and wanted to figure out if a high angled shot would work for our finalised video.



In this video shot above we filmed someone walking towards the camera of a mid shot straigh angle. This shot was used in the final cut of our music video.



In this shot above we filed a long angled close up shot of someone lying on the floor and which the camara then zooms out showing the whole of the persons body. This shot was orginally planned to be used and featured in the storyboards but was not used in the final music video cut.

Choice of Location

We decided to film in a park. We thought this would be beneficial and would enfore the parody of the dog running around the park without its owner.

To the right you can see a little picture of what the park looks like. We thought it was a well kept park and would suite our music video.

Theoretical Evidence

We decided to base our music video on a story-based narrative of a dog that has run away from the owner. We decided to show both sides of the story and this meant that in editing we had to include roughly the same ammount of attention on both the dog running away and the owner looking for the dog.


To make the story more interpretable for the viewer, we decided to use Ferdinand de Saussure's concept of 'Course on General Linguistics' (1916). In this, Saussure describes the science of signs as semiology, that is, the deconstruction of the significance of images and words, the meanings of images and thus the associates the audience brings to the symbol. Thus, we decided to use this idea with a lost dog sign which would mean that the audience were away of the narrative.

As well as this, we also wanted to use Rolan Barthes focus on 'Mythologies' (1973) who further discussed the semiology of images. Like Saussure, he breaks down the myth as a type of speech into three components:

1. The signigifier- the associations
2. The Signified- the meaning behind the associations
3. The sign- the Signifier and the Signified are interwoven in the shape you see.


Early Soviet Cinema

Feature-length agitation films in 1918-21 were important in the development of the film industry. Innovation in Russian filmmaking was expressed particularly in the work of Eisenstein. The "Battleship Potemkin" was noteworthy for its innovative montage and metaphorical quality of its film language

Post Filming

After filming we thought we had achieved our aim of mixing comedy and thriller and we thought this accomidated our aims. Thus, our music video is Pastice as well as Parody.


This was the costume that we used in our music video. We thought it was similar to that of 'Deadmau5' who are a band who use a mouse costume as their symbol in the song; "Ghosts and stuff". In that video, a human is placed in a ghost costume playing pranks and running around town aimlessly, which could change the mood but keep it serious and this was something which we wanted to renact.

How to analyse a music video...

Andrew Goodwin writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (Routledge 1992)




Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).

There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).

There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).

Editing Process

Once we had succesfully filmed, we had to enter the editing process.




Adobe Premiere is a video editing software package suitable for both amateur enthusiasts and professionals. It can be purchased and used alone, or alongside other applications such as Adobe Photoshop & After Effects. Premiere has been around for a long time and enjoys a very stable user base. It is a solid, professional-level application which will be more than adequate for most editing situations

Logging and Capturing the Video


Before being able to start the editing you must first batch capture the video footage, to do this you first need to place the mini-DV tape in the camera and connect it up to the camera before turning on premiere pro. There are a few settings which you need to change before starting the capturing for instance the files locations, the reason for doing this is the fact that you want all your files to be appropriately placed.To begin playing your tape, you can use the Play, Stop, Pause, Fast Forward and Rewind buttons below the Viewer window.


To capture the footage it is a simple process of setting in and outputs on the tape, which is done by is to first go through your tape and log the clips you want to capture by creating in and out points.Then when you're done selecting all the clips you want, you can do a Batch capture to capture them all at once. On the keyboard there are a selcetion of shortcuts to help create the project easier. Such as the i key which will create an in point to begin logging the clip,when the clip has reached the point where you want to stop capturing it, on your keyboard click on the o key, which will create an out point to stop logging the clip.Then click on the button for Log In/Out and then create a name for the file. Once this is completed throughout the video click the bacth capture record button and all the clips will be put in order and downloaded from the tape to the computer.






Transitions


A transition is the way one shot changes to the next. By default, if two clips are placed next to each other in the timeline, the transition is a cut.To make more interesting transitions such as dissolves, wipes and effects, use the transitions available in the Effects window.








Thankfully, due to the advanced equipement at school, we were able to use the technology to use things such as the 'razor' tool that would enable us to cut certain shots, replicate them and undoubtedly improve our music video.



The image to the left is how we utilised the cross dissolve effect, the effect of overlapping two images at once. What we had done was overlap a long shot with a close-up but at different angles. This helps to give the viewer a good idea of what is going, what we found good about the effect was that it was not only a second long whereas it last about three seconds so giving the viewer enough time to consume the images placed on the screenWith the programme you can also make straight cuts, for that fast and sharp effect which we were looking for, for instance creating cuts between the music. The best way for fast cuts was to pause as the beat was about to change and use the razor tool to chop the clip in two too make that fast cut.


Whilst editing we decided to experiment on certain shots, it was simple to experiment as every effect which was placed onto a clip can easily be removed. The reason for experimenting was that we wanted too see a lot of different effects and see which ones suited our video best. Some of the effects that we played around with were ghosting, Motion blur which creates action lines of image, leaving a blurry image which changes from brightness and then contrasts and we played around with the Speed and duration of the video clip which increases as well as decreases the speed of the shot.

CD Cover- Practice

As part of our Media Studies course, we have to make a CD cover. To do this, we were helped by specified teachers who helped us through the proccess. We practiced using 'Corel Draw 11' which would enable us to make the CD cover.

Our teacher gave us examples and wanted us to get used to the system. We looked at Snow Patrol's 'Eyes Open' and our teacher gave us three separate images and asked us to re-create the image below.

Change in Song

Due to the changing in idea, resulting from problems with the weather, we decided to change our song. Our original song had no lyrics and as a group we felt it was a bit boring.

As a group, we decided to opt out of the 'Final Encounter' song. So, we chose to go out there and search for a music song that would suit our music video.

I decided to email a couple of artists and found a perfect song for our media music video. I contacted the man, called Jonny Langsdale, and he was very optimistic about us using his music and gave us full permission to use his songs. Thus, we were able to change songs successfully.

Changes in Idea

Due to the bad weather experienced and a few little problems that occurred, we were forced to simplify our idea. Instead of the story-based narrative of our main character recalling his life. As a result of this, we changed our idea. We still kept the idea of having a story based narrative, but this time we made the storyline so that their was a character in a dog outfit who escaping from his owner.

We thought the use of the dog outfit meant that it was add a different aspect to our music video and add uniqueness. As well as this, we believed that the use of the costume could mean that we had potential to use the dog on our CD covers and mean that it could be a recognized symbol for our band.

Problems With Filming

We planned to film on Sunday the 15th, however, due to bad weather we were unable to meet this target. As a result, we re-organised ourselves and filmed on Sunday 22nd.

Unfortunately, we were hit with yet more bad luck as when we turned out to the editing suite, we found out that there had been a problem with the cameras and we were unable to batch-capture half the footage we have filmed.

This proved not be a problem for us and our determination as well as motivation equated to us filming yet again on Monday the 23rd. Although the sun set early, resulting in it being dark, we were still able to film the essential shots needed.

Planning To Film - Pre-filming story board

Above was our pre-filming storyboard. Inevitably, we did not stick to everything. However, we had this with us on the day of filming and tried to stick to the main ideas.

We planned to film on the 1st of November but due to the weather the filming had to be postponed. Luckily enough we were able to meet the following week and film on the 8th. As of above, we allocated each other different roles and this helped us to prepare for our filming. We believed that organisation was essential and thus, we took every precaution to make sure we were equipped and ready to film.

Pre-Filming Story board