Matching the house colour of my products: Screen grab

This is a video I have created through screen grabbing with 'CamStudio', capturing how I have strived to ensure that all of my products have a fluent house colour. The particular house colours of my digipak, album cover and music video is red, black, white and green, as they are natural colours. I have tried to extend these house colours throughout my products by for example (what it shows in the video), adding a slightly red/pink filter to the images in each part of my digipak. I think the effect of this is that the colours are subtle, as I do not want the images to look too tacky, unrealistic and colourful, but they have a slight hint of my house colours so that everything matches and my house colours are consistent throughout. I believe that this will create a sense of familiarity within the audience as they will recognise the colours fluently and then, hopefully they will go on to associate these colours with my three products.

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

Transcript:

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

With regards to my music video, I feel that the technical skills used were very contributory towards its success, aesthetically, emotively and creatively. Understanding that my music video would essentially appeal to young girls within the ages of 12-24, I adapted different ideas along the way to ensure that it would both attract and appeal to this target audience, and match their exact expectations of what's considered a 'good' Pop music video. Firstly, the concept of my video was well-thought out. I didn't just want to make a 'cliché love story', but a story of a girl who is lost in her own entrapment of heartbreak, allowing the audience to actually follow her journey as she is constantly reminded of props that trigger flashbacks in her mind. The audience are actually shown these flashbacks, and they are not just random flash backs either. Each prop she discovers along her journey is actually a figure of her imagination, and not only this, but each flashback is a stage of her past relationship with her ex, Matt. I planned out the stages before I began filming, and these were: Stage 1. Just-met/dating stage Stage 2. Comfortable/in love stage Stage 3. Distrust/arguments stage Stage 4. Break-up stage Stage 5. Acceptance/moving-on stage. I decided that the total five stages would allow an actual simple structure for my audience to understand, giving it depth, and an equilibrium/resolution. I felt this was successful because I knew that most young females would be able to relate with the concept of being cheated on or arguing with a guy they held 'close to their heart'. Therefore, they would be able to empathise with her and understand my video on a much deeper, emotional level, which I believe is important. This is amplified even more by the technical aspects of my video, where I have used short shots that I matched specifically to each beat of the song so that it flows fluently to the rhythm. I kept the pace of the shots at a consistent rhythm until the climax of the song, where I flicked back and forth from many shots of Matt and Georgina arguing, to amplify the pain and anger experienced in this stage of their relationship through extremely fast-paced shots. I felt that this would suitably capture the reckless emotion portrayed not just in the song, but aesthetically too. I believe that this is another successful aspect of my music video because I think it has the ability to actually affect the audience emotively, as we (as the audience) are taken on a nostalgic journey, almost witnessing the couple's happy moments together first hand, for it all to suddenly break apart in front of us. Furthermore,

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

Transcript:

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

Initially, before any planning or research, I created a blog on www.blogger.com. This site allowed me to record every single element involved within the process of creating all three of my products. Luckily, I was familiar with this site already as I had used it in AS level Media studies. It was quite a simple concept to get a hold of so I found myself quickly adapting to it and posting different things every day. It proved to be extremely great in displaying my multimedia skills and portraying my work in a visually pleasing manner. It meant I could embed my tasks from different documents, whether it be Word, a video or Powerpoint, which was useful. I actually found myself enjoying using Blogger and beginning to post things I didn’t really need to, however I felt would help improve my grade. Blogger was essential to publishing my actual journey and how I improved on my producing process with every week. Additionally, Prezi is another site I was familiar with due to using it previously in AS. It is a web-based presentation application, which helped me present my work in perhaps more interesting and entertaining ways rather than just Powerpoint. This allowed me to actually vary the publishing techniques I used with my tasks, making them look more abstract and different. The embed tool on Prezi is what allowed me to copy my presentations on to my blog, so that it was easy to view every time anyone went on to my blog.

            Of course, to actually post videos to Blogger, I needed

"Guns and Horses" - Ellie Goulding music video 3rd draft

"Guns and Horses" - Ellie Goulding A2 music video 3rd draft from Hannah Alley on Vimeo.


This is the third draft of my music video, in which I have made many changes to my last draft to improve it greatly. Firstly, I have colour corrected all of the shots by adding a long adjustment layer that goes through all of the shots, which I then added an 'auto colour' effect to. I found this made all of my shots a bit brighter and more pleasing to the eye, therefore more professional. I also added a shot at the beginning that pans down to the floor to ensure I not only have a variety of camera movement, but so that I could match the shots to the beat/Ellie's voice a bit more. To make my music video better, I have really taken notice of all of the feedback I've received and improving on the aspects/criticism mentioned. A prime example of this is when someone said that on one of the shots of Georgina's feet walking across the woods ground at the start of the video, 'her feet move too slowly in comparison to the long shots of her walking a little bit faster before and after this'. So, I increased the speed of this shot of Georgina's feet walking, to about 160%, and compared it with the long shots of her walking before and after this. I found that they now matched, and the scene looked a lot more realistic. Then, I added an adjustment layer to all of the narrative shots which essentially made them all brighter, and the contrasts a lot darker. I figured that the previous effect I'd added to the narrative shots was not effective enough; when I'd asked for feedback on the second draft, people had said I needed to colour correct some shots, which made me assume that the previous effect made the narrative shots look too dull and did not have the right effect/success, so I knew I needed to change this. The new effect I've added to the narrative shots ensures that there is a strong contrast between the performance and narrative shots, so that the audience can identify what are flashbacks, and what is not. The second feature I have changed in my music video is that I have changed the pace, cut and rhythm of the shots greatly. In the second draft of my video, some narrative parts matched the beat of the song and some narrative parts didn't. However I have changed this so that all narrative shots match the exact beat and rhythm of the song, and it is pleasing and fluent to the human eye. I did this by 'matching' each beat onto the timeline of my video, and cut each shot to this. This was quite difficult because I had to get each shot at the exact right time, which meant I even had to search for some more footage in my files and add more shots to perfect this. But I found the overall image really successful, as now, it flows naturally and matches the beat perfectly. I have also added a 'sharpen' adjustment layer throughout all of my shots, to ensure that all shots look professional and as sharp as possible. I found that the footage looked a lot better after I had done this, as according to my audience feedback, some shots were blurred, and I knew I needed to fix this.
Furthermore, I've added more interesting and quirky effects to my music video in order to ensure that it stands out and looks different and enticing to the eye. Sometimes 'love stories' in music videos can come across as cliché and 'the same', so I wanted to really avoid this. Therefore, at 00:56 seconds in when there are narrative shots displayed of Georgina putting on her coat and leaving her house to go and meet Matt, there is now an overlay of a performance shot of Georgina singing the lyrics displayed at that moment in time, which is faded into the narrative shot slightly. You can see the narrative shot more than this shot which is the idea - I changed the opacity of the performance shot so that it is slightly seen. I have also done this for about three other shots throughout my music video, either to represent Georgina's emotions - for example at one stage, I added a faded shot of Georgina looking down sadly, over the top of a shot of Georgina running through the woods - or to just show different aspects of the video and like I said, keep it interesting. I also did it to remind the audience that Georgina is still performing on the outside of this narrative.
Additionally, I have tried to make use of all of the footage I have taken to make my music video more interesting and varied shot-wise. Therefore, I added a shot about 01 min 23 secs in of Georgina's eye-view of what it looks like in the woods ahead of her. The camera is moving as if she is walking and the view is of her eye sight. I found this would be effective in showing her point of view, like I do with many other shots throughout the video. 
What I have also done is change the colour of the slow motion gymnastic shots in the video. Before, they were black and white, but the more I watched my video, the more I found the black and white a bit cliché and normal. I want to stay away from my music video being completely conventional and predictable as possible, so I changed the colour to a light pink colour instead. I did this ask light pink connotes love and passion, which is exactly the emotion Georgina conveys throughout my music video.
There's not a lot I changed about the climax part of my music video where all the shots fasten up, as they all originally matched the beat of the song as I tried to do this very carefully and accurately, as well as the fact that this was the specific part I got a lot of positive feedback on in my survey. I felt that if I made too many changes to this, it wouldn't be what my audience wanted, so I left this.
However, the ending part of my video I really did change. For starters, in the shots of the letter being found and then burned, I colour corrected these with a 'colour curve' effect and increased the green and red curves in the shots, as I found they looked better this way and they also conveyed a more passionate emotion. Then, after receiving the feedback that the ending of my video was too confusing with Georgina smiling happily as she sung the last lyric of the song, I completely changed this. I agree that it was contradicting as throughout the whole of my video she'd been sad and heartbroken, whereas at the end she portrayed the complete opposite of this. So I replaced one of the shots with a slow shot of the camera panning across the ashes left over on the floor from her burning the letter, and sped it up a bit, and then left the shot of Jess' gymnastics in black and white as I found it more memorable and meaningful this way, and then I added a close up shot of Georgina looking sad, so that the audience could finally empathise and identify with her. Then, on top of this I placed a shot of Georgina and Matt standing in a field cuddling together, as their last moments together. I made this black and white so it had a sentimental affect, and changed the opacity to about 30% so that it faded into the close up shot of Georgina looking sad. Therefore, the two shots were very contrasting as Georgina's hair is colourful and bright red to signify passion and pain/anger, in comparison with the sad, black and white shot of the couple's last moments together. I found that this was the perfect final shot for my music video as the merging of these two pieces of footage gave off the effect of the audience actually knowing what Georgina is thinking about in this final shot of her looking sad, because it is represented faintly on top of her - reminiscing of her and Matt happy together. I actually found this shot of Georgina and Matt right at the start of the footage I'd taken for my music video, when I was filming Jess doing her gymnastics. The purpose wasn't even to film Georgina and Matt at this stage - I was actually filming Jess practicing her gymnastics - yet I just happened to pan over to Georgina and Matt cuddling together. Therefore this was actually a natural, unplanned shot that they happened to be doing without us even organising it, which is the more touching part for me. I therefore wanted to incorporate this into my music video, because it's also a different scene; the wide field they are in represents the more happy, freedom-filled days the couple had together when they were in love.
Overall, I am pleased with the final product of my music video, however I will add changes to it in the future. For example, I know that the end of the video needs to go on for longer as it finishes quite abruptly, when really I want the sad effect to prolong for just a bit, so it can slowly fade out. I only realised this once I had published the video. Furthermore, I need to fix some shots in terms of colour correction as some of them flash into different colours, and also I haven't added the same effect to every narrative shot, so I definitely need to fix this. I have also noticed that there is also a slight delay at the start of the music video with miming, when Georgina is first walking towards the ribbons (which are not seen at this stage yet), so I will fix this too.

Evaluation: How have you used, developed, or challenged Conventions of Real Media texts?

Evaluation: How Have you Developed, Used or Challenged Conventions of Real Media Texts?

Transcript:

Evaluation: How have you used, developed, or challenged Conventions of Real Media texts?

Each media text adapts certain typical conventions according to its genre, such as pop, rock, R&B etc. If you watch a variation of music videos, you will realise that they all cater to certain genre conventions, which are repeated over and over until they eventually become familiar to an audience. However, you could argue that some artists like Gaga for example, essentially have their ‘own genre’, as Gaga is so unique in so many ways.

Music video

My music video uses a pop song, so when it came to producing it, I knew I needed to decide whether to conform to fixed pop conventions, develop them or challenge them. I ended up wanting to have a contrasting balance of both challenging and using pop conventions, which was very fun to do. Firstly, my video definitely conforms to Goodwin’s ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ theory, stating that there is a relationship between lyrics and visuals firstly. I definitely do this, as for example, when Ellie Goulding sings ‘I left my house, left my clothes’ I correlate this with footage of Georgina putting on her jacket and leaving her house. I made sure to repeat this aspect quite a few times to represent familiarity, but not too many times for it to become repetitive and predictable. Secondly, my music video really conforms to the idea that there’s a ‘relationship between the music and visuals’, as I made sure to match every single shot to each beat of the song with the ‘marking’ tool, so that the rhythm and pace was consistent and easy to watch. The second draft of my music video however, did not have this and watching it back/receiving feedback made me realise it really did need short, snappy cuts to match the song rhythm, so of course I changed this. The lighting on the “happy” shots of the couple’s first date and their comfortable/inlove stage are high key, to represent happiness and lightheartedness which is what many pop music videos replicate. However, when things start to go wrong and Georgina gets rejected, the lighting instantly becomes low key and shots fasten up to represent her frustration and overwhelming emotion. Also, as Goodwin stated,

Evaluation: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Transcript:

Evaluation: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Gathering audience feedback was a prime element of the production process of my music video, as it informed me on what sort of thing I need to improve on in order for me to reach the best grade possible. It also showed me the generally favoured elements about my music video, which highlighted to me what conventions my target audience appreciated as a whole. It also ensured that I was creating products that would appeal to my target audience successfully and be of a high professional quality.

The primary target audience I have chosen for my music video is mainly teenage and adult females between the ages of 14 and 30, as they will most likely have experienced or witnessed what my music video focuses on at least once in their life: heartbreak/relationships. Furthermore, due to Ellie Goulding being quite a young, angelic & popular artist that younger female audiences will most likely be aware of, a female target audience seemed appropriate. This is adding onto the fact that the Pop genre is more well-known within the younger generation. I represented all of these elements in my products by making them feminine and pretty/naturistic. Examples of this are the light star/twinkle effect I applied to a photo on my front cover digipak, or the narrative in my music video following a female on her journey – allowing audiences to personally identify with the character. The secondary audience of my music video would be males between the ages of 17 and 25. This is because I’d assume that less males would be interested in my music video because the concept is quite feminine.

I made sure to gather all the audience feedback I could, all the way through the production process of all my products. Before beginning the whole process of production, I created and handed out a questionnaire to my Media class mates which asked questions like “would you prefer a music video with narrative and performance? Or just performance?” This allowed me to collect both qualitative and quantitative data, which was really useful. As well as this,

Summary of raw performance footage

This is a video I have made on Adobe Premiere Pro, including a summary of all the footage I had taken for the performance side of my music video. I summarised each part bit by bit, explaining what each shots were used for, as well as explaining why I used one shot and didn't use another, the shots I didn't use with their explanation, and more. I found this task really insightful because it made me realise how much footage I had and how much effort had been put into it, and also why I hadn't used some shots. It definitely reassured me that I had chosen the most suitable clips for my music video, which was good. As you can see by watching this video, it only contains a summary of several different shots as my aim was to not bore the audience with a range of random, tedious footage. I have used the main feature of personal identity by keeping the audience engaged through mainly using shots that contain my main protagonist, as she is the focus of my music video - not other irrelevant aspects. I hope that my audience will maintain their interest by having some sort of relation to the artist. Furthermore, I adapted the footage on Premiere consisting of speeding up some footage, cutting some parts and adding captions to allow the audience to be able to identify each part, so that again, they don't bore easily and feel as if they are watching the same thing over and over. Lastly, portraying a range of footage allows the audience to feel as if they are part of a journey, directly watching transitions from each shot to shot and how all the scenery varies.

More alterations made along the way: adding the last clip

More alterations made along the way: adding the last clip by hannahalley

This is a document I have made, explaining an alteration I have made to my music video recently, in preparation for my final version.  This includes me basically altering the last few clips of the video and replacing them with other videos, as it explains in the document; the whole process was really invigorating because I felt like my music video looked tons better after I had done this. The document basically explains this whole process, and how I think it will effect my music video/the audience. It also includes a screen grab of the process on Adobe Premiere Pro.

Results from survey on the second draft of my music video

Here, as you can see I have analysed the data I have collected from the results of the survey I created based on the second draft of my music video. I handed the survey out through many methods such as social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, or asking family and friends to fill it out. I find the results put into a bar chart here very interesting because it summarises for me how much improvement I need to make and overall what people think of my video. I also noted how the majority of people said that the shots of Jess doing gymnastics were unnecessary, which has encouraged me to perhaps remove his footage to suit my target audience. There is a lot I can learn from these results.

Project log 04/02/14 (progress on my products)

At the moment I am working on fixing my blog and making sure it is up to date and organised. For example, I have added descriptions where they have been needed on certain documents I have uploaded onto my blog, like the drafts of my products. I realised that for some, I hadn't explained properly what changes I had made to them and how I plan to improve them, so I did all of this today. Also, whenever I've been in school I have been working on all of my products; especially my music video and digipak. On my digipak I re-did the sparkles underneath the masthead to make them less blurry and look more professional, and I changed the filter of the main image a tad, to the one I liked best. Also, on my music video I have been working really hard to shorten shots down to make them suit the pace of the song more and be less tedious to watch. To do this, I set 'marks' on the timeline of my music video to basically mark each beat of the song to end each shot to, so that it has a good pace and rhythm. After watching each part I'd done back, I noticed it looked so much better to watch and a lot more professional. I realised that too many of my shots were too long, so I've definitely changed a lot of this and will be doing more so as I go on. I have also changed the filter on my 'gymnastic black and white shots' into a subtle light pink filter. I believe this looks so much better as the light pink is a lot more subtle and professional, and also pink connotes passion and love, so it represents very well. In my eyes sometimes black and white is too corny and doesn't look very professional, so I knew I needed to change this. I will be continuing to work on all of my products throughout the week. I have also started one of my evaluation questions, so I will be continuing to work on this too.