Charles Littlefair Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The conventions of an indie music video are having a band performance going on throughout the video and some sought of narrative or un-music related story. As a group we decided to stick to this so that our piece would look more like a real media product. Our first idea was having the band performance in a field but the weather stopped us from doing this on various occasions so in the end we filmed our band playing in a music/production room. Our narrative was having the main character and lead singer walking down different roads singing the song and relating to the song. This challenged forms of indie music videos because our band had both genders within in whereas most bands at this time are predominately male. When filming the band, we wanted to make sure we had lots of shots to cut to and from as I believe that all good music videos have lots of shots and shot types. We also did the same when filming down the streets so we would film the song once then we would do it 4 more times at different angles or different distances.
By keeping with the one theme of Indie we developed this within in the facial expression, costume, and attitude and also within the editing. In many indie video different affects are used. So from peer feedback we were told there were parts of our piece that lacked something and were slightly boring. So we decided to add in the splitting screens. This had a very strong relationship with the music as the scene multiplied with the beat of the music.

This made our music video more eye-catching and gave the viewer more to watch. We also added text to points in the video where there were areas of dull open background. This also gave the viewer something else to watch and is used in other music videos of similar style.

We were able to put these affects in because we were using Final Cut Express, a good piece of new technology. The affects it gave us were the spilt screening, text, changes of pace and general cutting of the video. It also helped us to get the lip syncing correct as me used markers to get it exactly right. I believe that it improved our music video greatly. But to further improve it I think a better model of camera would do a great deal.
I think that to make a good music video and to make it look like a real media product you need to use lots of shots and the shots need to be changing frequently throughout the video. This is a key point that we tried to follow whilst filming and editing. Also the costume that the lead singer and band is wearing is important. So we made the lead singer have indie clothes on and change them for every shot. So then the indie audience could relate to the video.


2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

This is my magazine advert I wanted to make it looks as professional as possible. The way I did this was to add logo at the bottom, have a simple but bold font, a website featured and to edit the piece a lot so it looked unnatural. I did this by using a programme called Photoshop, separating the background and foreground and using an effect called posterisation. This also makes it a lot more eye-catching. The way this is linked to the main piece is that it is the main singer in the picture and the also there are parts of the music that would be classed as abstract and so is this with the multi-coloured bricks.

This is the DVD DigiPak we wanted to make the two products linked so on the front the background is posterised and on the back the main is poster and the background is natural. Also we used to same font on both pieces. We also added the logos on the back of this one to make it look real. On the back we put screen shots this gives the audience a look at what is on the DVD. As there is bad language in this song we put a 15 certificate on the front and back to warn parents of bad language and also we put a parental advisory on the digipak.
The three products make a promotional package this is why they are linked together. In the music video the lead singer is seen as a cool, popular and bold person so in the photos we kept this theme with the main character not smiling but knowing that the camera is there. We decided to take pictures again as the screen shots, when enlarged went too blurry, but by having the same person in the pictures it kept a visual link. In the digipak and the magazine advert the audience can relate, as the model is wearing indie clothes. We used a chequered shirt as we thought that it would adapt to the cartoon affect and stand out as being unnatural, where as a plain white t shirt would of look normal with the affect.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
We got written feedback from all of our feedback, which we took all of onboard and also we personally gave ourselves feedback. The feedback we got from our rough cut was we had too many shots in different locations like we had some shots in a house and some on the streets. So we decided to take out the shots from inside the house and bathroom. Also we were told we needed more close ups as a music video is selling an artist. Also we got from feedback that we need to introduce the lead singer and the main locations earlier on in the video. The main thing we got from feedback is that you are kept interested up until after the guitar solo so this is where we decided to add in the affects and the text. Also we were told that there should be more shots of the band so we added cuts to the band more often. Our peers told us that the performance was enthusiastic and the lip syncing was done well.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used the most new technology whilst we were editing the main music video and the ancillary tasks. The time we would it was when we were getting our initial ideas from the internet using YouTube to watch other indie videos and using MySpace to see what butch walker was like as a person. Also we watched DVDs and listened to CDs to see other videos and to establish conventions. We used a internet site called blogger where we stored all of our ideas throughout the project and where we put our final pieces from each project. This was really good because we could easily excess this from anywhere and you could see other peoples work. Photoshop allows you to change the image or picture in many ways. We used to for both of our ancillary tasks so this gave us the opportunity to use the cartoon affect and to link both of our tasks together. Using Final Cut Express helped us to edit and to also lip sync our footage to our music, we also used it to add affects to our piece. While we were filming the main singer walking down different roads we use a dolly this enabled us to get a steady picture whilst moving.