This project has helped us understand the basic foundations of a music video. This includes the how much effort goes into the planning, making sure that every bit of detail is correct within the plan and how much effort goes into the effects of a video, and how just a slight degree of change can have such a profound impact on the entirety of the video.
We have learned how you have to stick to strict conventions and genre signifiers if you want to have any chance with making you product successful. We also learned the importance of making each product, the video, digipak and advert, tie in together to make a band identity with it so that people know exactly what they are buying.
We also learned the importance behind a band image as some people find this the most important factor into whether they would buy a product or not. For example they might only buy a product that has a clean image and does not do a illegal activities for their children to promote this to them.
We have also learned how the audience feedback plays an important part in the future of design as it influences what you do next. Through audience feedback you can make your product perfect for each person meaning that you will get your video out to more people and make more money.
Different technologies have also played a big part in how we made our media product. The software and high powered computers made the job much easier and with websites like prezzi we can make our blogs look much better than they normally would.
Friday, 16 December 2011
Evaluation Question 4
Blogger
For our coursework, we were required to use Blogger in order to keep track and record of all of our developments pre, during and post production.
Benefits
Blogger enabled us to neatly organise our work into a way where it followed the checklist correctly and, if we made any changes to one of our posts, we only needed to hit the update button. This allowed for instantaneous sharing with our teachers as they could follow our blogs and then give us recommendations on how to improve our work through the comments system as it is a web 2.0 service.
Difficulties
Some videos we uploaded such as the focus group and the final music video didn’t fit in the blog post guidelines, which made the blog look unattractive.Prezzi
We used Prezzi to create an alternative way of posting on Blogger, so that the posts would not be just essay style posts.
Benefits
Prezzis were a unique way of posting; they offered something different which made the posts and the blog itself more appealing.
Difficulties
Difficulties encountered include the graphic user interface being complicated and, at times, inaccessible. There was also no spelling check with in the program meaning that you had to proofread it yourself. This meant that human error could sometime play a role in words being spelled wrong.
Apple Macs
Apple Macs were the foundations for everything we did during our project. These contained all the software we needed to carry out our tasks.
BenefitsThe Apple Macs had all the software we needed, to produce our professional media products. Websites weren’t restricted when we needed to use the websites for our blogs and our media products, which were a great help to us.Difficulties
Difficulties encountered whilst using the Apple Macs, include the inability to bring up the context menu without pressing two buttons, the keyboards which are uncomfortable to use, the inability to truly maximise a window, the inability for Safari to properly render HTML, the desktop that was cluttered throughout the project, the inefficient cooling mechanism that made the Mac extremely hot while rendering our project, the locking of certain applications by technical support, the lack of a word processor that matches the windows version.
Digital Cameras
These were high quality cameras that enabled us to create professional looking shots.
Benefits
The benefits of using the digital cameras, included their high quality image, they’re lightweight and their ease of use.Difficulties
The cameras had quite a short battery life, and took a long time to transfer the shots onto Final Cut Pro.Final Cut This piece of software enabled us to use professional effects and editing techniques, in order to create a music video that was of professional standards.
Benefits
It had all the required tools we needed to create a professional standard of music video. It offered a wide range of different effects and filters to insert over our video. This included color correction techniques such as saturation, adding graininess and reducing the brightness.
Difficulties
The difficulties faced whilst using Final Cut Pro were those such as the software was quite complex to use.
For our coursework, we were required to use Blogger in order to keep track and record of all of our developments pre, during and post production.
Benefits
Blogger enabled us to neatly organise our work into a way where it followed the checklist correctly and, if we made any changes to one of our posts, we only needed to hit the update button. This allowed for instantaneous sharing with our teachers as they could follow our blogs and then give us recommendations on how to improve our work through the comments system as it is a web 2.0 service.
Difficulties
Some videos we uploaded such as the focus group and the final music video didn’t fit in the blog post guidelines, which made the blog look unattractive.Prezzi
We used Prezzi to create an alternative way of posting on Blogger, so that the posts would not be just essay style posts.
Benefits
Prezzis were a unique way of posting; they offered something different which made the posts and the blog itself more appealing.
Difficulties
Difficulties encountered include the graphic user interface being complicated and, at times, inaccessible. There was also no spelling check with in the program meaning that you had to proofread it yourself. This meant that human error could sometime play a role in words being spelled wrong.
Apple Macs
Apple Macs were the foundations for everything we did during our project. These contained all the software we needed to carry out our tasks.
BenefitsThe Apple Macs had all the software we needed, to produce our professional media products. Websites weren’t restricted when we needed to use the websites for our blogs and our media products, which were a great help to us.Difficulties
Difficulties encountered whilst using the Apple Macs, include the inability to bring up the context menu without pressing two buttons, the keyboards which are uncomfortable to use, the inability to truly maximise a window, the inability for Safari to properly render HTML, the desktop that was cluttered throughout the project, the inefficient cooling mechanism that made the Mac extremely hot while rendering our project, the locking of certain applications by technical support, the lack of a word processor that matches the windows version.
Digital Cameras
These were high quality cameras that enabled us to create professional looking shots.
Benefits
The benefits of using the digital cameras, included their high quality image, they’re lightweight and their ease of use.Difficulties
The cameras had quite a short battery life, and took a long time to transfer the shots onto Final Cut Pro.Final Cut This piece of software enabled us to use professional effects and editing techniques, in order to create a music video that was of professional standards.
Benefits
It had all the required tools we needed to create a professional standard of music video. It offered a wide range of different effects and filters to insert over our video. This included color correction techniques such as saturation, adding graininess and reducing the brightness.
Difficulties
The difficulties faced whilst using Final Cut Pro were those such as the software was quite complex to use.
Photoshop
Photoshop helped us create our digipak and digipak advert; this piece of software came in very handy when it came to creating these media products.
Benefits
The benefits of Photoshop, we feel were the fact that it was easy to use, it produced professional looking media products for our work, and showed professionalism throughout.
Difficulties
One of the major difficulties with Photoshop is that it can be very hard to use without prior experience or tutorials. Because of this, Photoshop was much harder to pick up and use compared to other products but when we got the hang of it, the program was easy to use.
Digital Audio Recorders
We used this piece of hardware to record our voices to be used with in a directors’ commentary.
Benefits
Benefits included with the digital audio recorders, were that they were easy and simple to use, and helped us create a clear sounding directors commentary.
YouTube
We used this video-sharing site to share our focus groups and our music video, and to analyse and research existing music videos.
Benefits
YouTube was an extremely useful website for us. It allowed us easy access to our own videos when it came to sharing them between the group for our own individual uploads. This was also useful for researching already existing music videos.
Difficulties
YouTube was blocked on certain Apple Macs and therefore was not always the most reliable website to use. It often required an admin to unblock it occasionally, which was inconvenient.
Evaluation Question 3
User feedback
Jon - Personally, I thought that the music video comes across as professional but has some notable weaknesses. I think that the use of angles and shots are immensely positive. One negative would be the idea that the video has focused too much on a band scenario. I understand this is the concept of the video, but there is potential for both surrealism and more focus on other characters.
Daniel - Though it's not my type of music, it was interesting to watch the music video- the use of shots engaged me the most, changing from the performance band to the streets.... I liked how the band were telling a story as the story outside was going on.
Positive criticism
One positive that was said in every comment we received was that the use of shots were highly varied and that it engaged the audience a lot. Some others include the telling of the story by the band as it was going on, the use of effects looks really professional and not over edited and that Simon's emotions are conveyed really well.
Negative criticism
Some of the negatives were that the video has focused too much on the performance part and not enough on the narrative. They also say that the narrative was not as well developed and that they did not fully understand what happened in it.
Future work
I think that the comments gave me great insight into the future. I have found that my group is really good at making a performance based video and that we have made it look professional. However we are quite weak at making a narrative and developing it throughout the video. By either spending more time on planning the narrative or by doing an entirely performance based video we can make it better in the future.
Learning from the comments
I think that I have learned a great deal from these comments. One of these things is that you need to use a different shot each time you make a new clip in the process. This keeps it varied and the user entertained and makes the whole project look more professional. Another thing that I have learned is that balancing the narrative and performance is vital to keeping the user entertained and not have them confused.
Evaluation Question 2
Importance of brand identity
Brand identity is very important. It says how the band is represented by the press, in a positive way or negative way and how the audience reacts to the audience. If the band identity is that of respect and keeping clean it is more likely to be given to children, where as if they are represented as rebels it will more likely be bought by anarchists. This effects there sales largely as there are more children than anarchists so they will have to be careful when choosing this image.
How we created a brand image
The brand image we created was of respect. We created this by making our band wear reasonably smart clothes, not destroying any equipment and by making a video with respect to he dead. We also created this image by making the digipak and advert have a clean look. People will think that we are clean and are therefore more likely buy it for there children.
How we think the digipak will sell the song/video to the audience
The digipak has gone for a largely clean look making people believe that the video is clean and devoid of any drug abuse or other illegal activities. This will mean that adults will more likely let there children watch the music video. This will mean that our potential audience will be made igger and we will be represented in the media as a positive influence
How we think the advert will sell the digipak to the audience
The advert largely takes after the theme of the digipak. This means that it takes a largely clean look. This will have the same effect as the digipak had on the video, making people think that it is clean and devoid of illegal activities. This will mean that the people who will be likely to buy my product will have children that they will give it to.
What elements communicate the genre to the audience
The guitars add the element that it is part of the rock genre. The Border around the edge also adds a rock or grunge feel further signifying the genre to the audience. The inclusion of these two signifiers alone means that people will be able to tell that it is of the rock genre.
Brand identity is very important. It says how the band is represented by the press, in a positive way or negative way and how the audience reacts to the audience. If the band identity is that of respect and keeping clean it is more likely to be given to children, where as if they are represented as rebels it will more likely be bought by anarchists. This effects there sales largely as there are more children than anarchists so they will have to be careful when choosing this image.
How we created a brand image
The brand image we created was of respect. We created this by making our band wear reasonably smart clothes, not destroying any equipment and by making a video with respect to he dead. We also created this image by making the digipak and advert have a clean look. People will think that we are clean and are therefore more likely buy it for there children.
How we think the digipak will sell the song/video to the audience
The digipak has gone for a largely clean look making people believe that the video is clean and devoid of any drug abuse or other illegal activities. This will mean that adults will more likely let there children watch the music video. This will mean that our potential audience will be made igger and we will be represented in the media as a positive influence
How we think the advert will sell the digipak to the audience
The advert largely takes after the theme of the digipak. This means that it takes a largely clean look. This will have the same effect as the digipak had on the video, making people think that it is clean and devoid of illegal activities. This will mean that the people who will be likely to buy my product will have children that they will give it to.
What elements communicate the genre to the audience
The guitars add the element that it is part of the rock genre. The Border around the edge also adds a rock or grunge feel further signifying the genre to the audience. The inclusion of these two signifiers alone means that people will be able to tell that it is of the rock genre.
Digipak
Analysis
We created our digipak in a simplistic style, we stuck to basic but bold colours, red, white and black. This was also echoed through our digipak album.
The white and black had been included at first as the only two colours as these were perfect for our idea of having a silhouette of a band on the front cover, which would then be followed through with simply black and white text and borders. We then included the red as it tied in with our performance shots in our music video, where all the shots featuring the band had a slight red hue and were filmed in a red performance studio.
The border we used was a 'scratch/grunge' style border, we used this as it matched with the rock genre and generally suited our already existing design.
All in all we are pleased with the final digipak design and the groups effort to complete it. The colours work well, and the borders are suitable.
Digipak advert
Analysis
This advert follows the overall theme of the digipak we have created. This was the black and white theme with the red for important information such as the reviews. This would mean that you would be able to identify the digipak just by looking at the theme on it.
we made the rating and the release date stand out in red as this would help people to make a decision into wether they would buy it or not. They would see the review as one of the first things, see that it's good and then be enticed into looking at the entire poster. They would then see that it is out now and look for it in the shops. This means that the the theme and font work together to make a very good advertising machine. The review and release date by making them look for it and the combination of the theme to make it easy for them to buy. As it was an easier process to find it they will feel in a better mood and be more likely to buy it.
The border around the edge draws attention to the center as they will be looking at the text as it stands out more and it signifies that it is of the rock genre. This makes people of our target audience want to buy it.
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