OUR OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO

This is the final product of what will be used for our music video.

EVALUATION QUESTIONS

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

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

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?


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

Cameras
In the process of creating my music video and ancillary texts, I used a range of media technologies. 

To film the first take of my music video, we used a tripod and Toshiba digital hand held camera.This particular camera was not as good in pixel quality as expected.
I also filmed extra scenes that were never used in the music video, using my iPhone 4S.
For other various scenes that I needed to re-film, I used a professional canon camera.

Toshiba digital hand held camera

iPhone 4S

Canon camera

Editing software

After filming was finished, we edited at my house, using 'Windows Movie Maker' on my PC as we knew that we were more familiar with this software and previous experience using the macs was not pleasant. However publishing our music video from this software became a problem, so we had to switch software, 'Sony Vegas'.

'Windows Movie Maker'

'Sony Vegas'

Blogspot

From the start of my advanced portfolio, I have created a blog page specifically for the music video project. I have been using it to show my understanding and process of what I am doing, from the deliberation of which artist and song I wanted to do, to the summary of filming. I found that blogspot was the easiest media technology to use and the most helpful, not only contributing to my coursework but allowing me to revise for my exam via PC and portably because of the iPhone app.

'Blogspot'

'Blogspot' iPhone app

Fireworks

In creating my album cover, digipak and poster, as a pair me and my partner were completely unfamiliar with photoshop. So we decided to use 'Fireworks'. Although this was easier for us it did take a little bit of time to do because of specific dimensions we needed to create our digipak.

'Fireworks Adobe'

YouTube

YouTube has been an important feature, in research and planning. I used YouTube to research different underground artists at the beginning of starting my advanced portfolio. YouTube has also played a big part in audience feedback as I have posted numerous drafts of my music video on there for feedback.

'YouTube'

Google Chrome

Google chrome has been a crucial role in planning and researching. It allowed me to research aspects of music videos, digipaks and posters. It specifically aided my research into Vince Kidd.

'Google Chrome'

Powerpoint/Microsoft word/Spreadsheet

These three software have been used in order to create questionnaires, results and produce an evaluation question on. They were extremely helpful in the planning and production of my music video.

'Powerpoint'

'Microsoft word'

 'Spreadsheet'

Slideshare

In order to publish one of my evaluation questions onto my blog, I used this. It was a very helpful and quick way to upload a powerpoint onto my blog.

'Slideshare'

Toondoon

In the attempt of constructing my animation for my music video I used this software to familiarise myself with building up animated features. It was helpful as it was something that helped me learn how to create an animation.

 'Toondoon'

Paint
I used paint to crop and create screen shots and photos that were published through out my posts in my blog. It was very useful as it was quick and easy.

'Paint'

A QUICK CHANGE !

Georgia decided to give a go at adding in our condom clips into our media product again ... due to the change of software ...  IT WORKED !!

My exact words when she sent me the link of the improved music video was "I LOVE IT !!"

 Feeling much more confident with our product, we still were in a bit of a muddle, as to which music video we should use now that we had three to choose from. Georgia gathered some further feedback from people who had already watched music video number one and two.

Their responses:- 

Elena G: Prefers this video to the others as it flows much smoother and likes the fact we've changed the writing part at the end to clearer condom scene. 

Fatma F: (a person that has never watched any of our videos): Very pleased with the animation that we've incorporated and how we portray boys being pressured rather than girls.

Marios D: The third video is a lot more slicker and smoother than before, however it's a bit short. 

Cameron S: Watching the first one again compared to this, we have made such a big improvement especially on the ending. The transitions are a lot smoother and the interchange from the animation to real life footage is perfect! 

MORE EDITING ... *SIGH*

Editing for our music video has been very manic. We recently recorded a condom clips that could not be added into our product because of the software ...

We were really disappointed with this as we thought that the additional condom clips would be very beneficial to the quality of our music video.

A few days later ...

Georgia put the video onto her YouTube channel, so that she could put the link onto her twitter page for some audience feedback.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A86dA3z80wQ

 Below are a few of the comments that Georgia gathered that night.

Georgia and myself were very pleased with the feedback that we had received, so we decided that it would be a good idea to show both of our media teachers what we thought was our finalized music video since one of them had not seen anything from it before.

One of our teachers loved it whilst the other had some criticism about it. "The scene drags on for to long"

So editing was something that we had to do ... AGAIN!!!

That was not the only problem that we faced, the music video would not publish after editing ... AGAIN !!!

So Georgia decided to take all the clips one by one on her USB to see if it would work at her house ...

Surprise, surprise ... the clips were not compatible with the version of 'Movie Maker' that she had.

The next day,  Georgia contacted a friend as we knew he could find the correct software that we needed to finish and publish our music video.

We were greeted with the same problem, so he told us we should consider using this program.

'Sony Vegas'

It was a great relief to find that everything worked in the program and our product was ready to be published !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fja-HnJ7tVU

Feedback that was gathered ...

FINAL PRODUCT

Regarding feedback that we got from both of our media teachers on Wednesday, we removed some clips and added in some new ones.

However we are in a bit of a muddle on which final product is better. So I have decided to create an online survey so we can get some feedback on which is best and why.

Below is the link to our online survey that I have created.

Free Online Surveys

POSTER

Recently, myself and Georgia, have been focusing on our poster and digipak. 

As mentioned before is previous posts, we aren't very good with the software used on Macs .. 

Last week, whilst I was my in lesson, Georgia decided to play around with Firefox on the PC in our sixth form study room.

To our surprise her playing around, turned into creating our actual poster that we have finalized.

**UPDATED: 2/05/13**

In regards to what I have written above in this post, Georgia has added in a few more features into the poster to make it look like an actual release poster.

We plan on finishing our digipak this week along with our evaluation questions.

**UPDATED: 02/05/13**

We did not stick to the original design of our album cover that was created a few months ago, because it would have been to tricky and time consuming to edit on Photoshop.

(Our original design incomplete)

Above is our FINAL FRONT COVER!

We used replicated images of the animations in different effects to symbolise the different faces of the situation outlined in our music video which highlights the facelessness of the subject matter.The white pale background inflicting connotations of innocence and purity. 

Above is the inside of our digipak. 

The image is a section taken from our music video with added text with the words 'A Virgin' replicated. The image shows the animated male protagonist when he is in doubt and conflict about losing his virginity.

This is the back of our digipak.

In a previous post, I put up images of ideas that I had for our digipak. 

The post included the above images of sexualized silhouettes, which represent the facelessness of the the subject matter used in our music video.

Above is the complete digipak.

...

Posting hasn't been on my priority list lately ...

However, I have been planning our evaluation questions and gathering audience feedback for our media product. 

Above is a print screen of some of my planning for evaluation questions.

Above is the feedback that I have written in my iPhone notes when gathering audience feedback.

Above is the feedback that Georgia has gathered using social network site 'Twitter'.

In these last few weeks, it has been tricky to edit our media product to the standard that we would have liked it to be, and publish the music video onto a disk and, onto other social networks due to the software that we have been using.

HOWEVER ..

According to audience feedback, our music video has some great qualities to it .. 

This week I plan to gather more audience feedback via online questionnaires and creating a focus group varying in different ages and race. 

EDITING.

SUMMARY

Today we continued our editing process for our additional clips to our media product. We found that the clips we recorded weren't going with the concept of our music video, as well as we would have liked it to. So  we came up the idea of doubling up one of the animation clips twice, which will be in sync with one of the lyrics on the track 'Like A Virgin'. 

We also decided to put a few seconds of lip syncing in the middle of the media product to give us a better chance in entering the top band. 

After looking at other music videos from our media class we realized that our music video lacks a variety of camera shots and tricks so during the Easter holidays we plan to add in a shot where a stack of condoms disappear one by one. 

WWW (WHAT WENT WELL) 

- We were able to identify what needs to be added into our media product to make it better.

EBI (EVEN BETTER IF) 

- We planned out our clip add ins more efficiently and thought our decisions through.

Overall, editing has been more stressful that anticipated. We hope that our plans to add in our last clip will be our final editing session.

EDITING THE ADDITIONAL CLIPS

Tuesday 5th March 2013 

SUMMARY

After school Georgia and I went back to my house to add on and edit the clips that we shot on Monday to the rest of our media product. Because of technical problems like my computer being more updated that the software that allows the videos to be transferred from the camera, we didn't start editing until 6pm because we had to wait for my brothers laptop so we could do the transfer that way. We didn't finish editing due to the time that we actually started and Georgia having to be home at a certain time because it was a school night. However we plan to finish the editing process on Wednesday 13th March 2013.

Pictures from editing

WWW (WHAT WENT WELL)

- Adding the clips onto our media product in movie maker was fairly quick and easy. 

EBI (EVEN BETTER IF)

 - We were more organised with our time knowing that my computer does not connect with the camera from our last editing experience.

FILMING

LOCATION:
BISHOP STOPFORD'S SCHOOL SIXTH FORM

FILMING TIME:
15:00 - 15:30

DATE:
              MONDAY 4th MARCH 2013 

Last Monday we filmed our added scene for our media product. We did it after school in a free class room so that there was less likelihood of interruption from other students. In my opinion

everything went smoothly, we fiddled around with the blinds a bit for sufficient lighting but that wasn't a problem. Overall we did  about 5 takes which is quite good considering that we didn't have a specific drawn up storyboard to follow, we only had a rough idea of what we wanted. 

WWW (WHAT WENT WELL)

- We finished filming fairly quickly.

- The cast was available when needed. 

EBI (EVEN BETTER IF) 
- The camera screwed onto the tripod like expected.
- We had a better idea of what types of shots we wanted.